Adapting Reality: Public Service, Creative Vision, and the Power of Perspective
Public broadcasters carry a dual obligation: they must deliver audiences work that informs and reflects society and at the same time support creative risk. SVT’s five‑part flagship drama VANGUARD, released in Sweden as STENBECK and based on Per Andersson’s best‑selling biography, shows how that balance can be struck, as it turned the tumultuous life of Swedish media‑telecom titan Jan Stenbeck into an export‑ready series that has already secured international sales and festival buzz. By pairing public‑service rigour with premium storytelling, the production tackles real people, contested legacies, and unresolved social questions in a form built to travel beyond domestic borders. That negotiation is further enriched by a director‑producer team whose Bosnian roots give the project an outsider’s lens on Swedish power, clarifying themes, unsettling assumptions and inviting broader identification without flattening local nuance. What must be protected from the source, and where is interpretation not only permissible but essential for contemporary global viewers?
SPEAKERS
LEJLA BEŠIĆ
Producer, Nordisk Film | SE
MODERATED BY
MARIKE MUSELAERS
VP International Financing and Coproductions, Nordisk Film Production / SE
TIME
Tuesday, August 19th, 2025
16:30 – 17:30 (CET)
LOCATION
Festival Garden
JOHANNA GARDARE
Head of Drama & Film, Swedish Television (SVT) | SE
GORAN KAPETANOVIĆ
Film Director & Producer | BA
KRISTINA BORJESON
Head of Production, Film i Väst | SE
Lejla Bešić
Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and based in Sweden, Lejla Bešić is a producer of television series. With a background in working as coordinator, production manager, and line producer, she quickly established herself as a versatile and driven producer. She has extensive experience working with Swedish series, various genres and formats, and different commissioners. She has been involved in several high-profile productions and is perhaps best known for her latest work on THE BREAKTHROUGH for Netflix. She has been a producer at Nordisk Film since January 2025.
Johanna Gardare
Johanna Gardare spent eight years as Head of the Children & Youth Department at SVT, where she led the major digital transformation of children’s content in 2015—a shift that moved the young audience to SVT Play and doubled viewership numbers. Gardare is deeply committed to strategic change management and led the development of Swedish Television’s new corporate strategy in 2022. She has a solid background as a producer in the industry and has worked across multiple genres, including documentary and fiction. Currently, she is spearheading a transformation initiative that involves the entire Swedish drama industry. The focus is on reclaiming drama series for a new generation and challenging the industry to find new ways of producing drama—cheaper, more conceptualised, and more experimental. What’s the next “splash”?
Kristina Börjesson
Kristina Borjeson has been working within the film industry since 1991 and is currently Head of Production at the Swedish regional fund Film i Väst. She started her career at the Göteborg Film Festival, then spent ten years at the art-house distribution company Triangelfilm. After some years at a publishing house, she worked at the Swedish Film Institute for eight years in positions including Head of Distribution and Head of Film Funding, when she focused on production, distribution and international work and was in charge of the significant process of transferring the funding system to a 100 per cent state-governed system. For four years, she was the Swedish representative at Eurimages and, before starting at Film i Väst, she spent a year in the drama department of the public broadcaster TV4.
Marike Muselaers
With almost 20 years of experience in the film and TV industry, including co-leading the Lumiere Group (Benelux) as co-CEO, Marike Muselaers recently joined the management team of Nordisk Film Production as VP of International Financing and Co-productions. She is responsible for strengthening the financing of films and series and developing an ambitious strategy for co-productions. At Nordisk Film Production, and as a tutor, moderator, keynote speaker, and panel guest at many industry events and training programs, Marike always aims to facilitate and create compelling stories, meaningful partnerships, and innovative business models.