EXCLUSIVE: Following its Canneseries screening over the weekend, Norwegian relationship drama Rebound has been renewed for a second season.
Null47, an emerging Norwegian streamer curated for youth and young adult audiences and other niche groups, has quietly greenlit Season 2 of the short-form show, which is from Melike Leblebicioglu Kaveh and stars Mathilde Storm, Björn Mosten and Arjan Nilsen.
Not only that, but Norwegian production house Fenomen has already completed filming on a second ten-part run and we understand Null47 plans to launch it next month. Germany’s Beta Film is currently shopping rights to Season 1, whose episodes run to around seven minutes and are designed, according to director Daniel Fahre, to be consumed “while travelling on the train or the bus.”
Shot on a small budget, the entire show is filmed in the bedroom of lead character Alex (Storm), who returns from Bali, hoping to reconnect with her ex (Nilsen), but is instead dumped and heartbroken. She then falls for her rebound (Mosten) and they begin a “situationship,” while she tries to reconcile how she feels about her former lover. “It was so cool to make a one-location story,” said Fahre. “There’s such a rich tradition with films like Twelve Angry Men.”
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Season 1 is playing the Canneseries short-form competition against Finland’s Dorm No. 13, France’s Lost Media, Canada’s Getting Under Your Skin, New Zealand’s N00B and Belgium’s Oh, Otto!.
Leblebicioglu Kaveh told Deadline at Canneseries today the series is based on her own experiences. “I always think of break ups as my first trauma,” she said. “That has happened many times.”
She said that the one-location format meant she was able to “completely focus on the story, as you don’t have other options,” while Fahre noted that “the bedroom is the most intimate room in the house, where you show your real emotions, so it felt very appropriate to convey heartbreak.”
Storm – who has appeared in shows such as Netflix’s One Day and Norwegian titles Rådebank and Innebandykrigerne – said the acting challenge was “carrying every emotion in this one room.”
“You really got into character when you entered that room – all of Alex’s things were on the shelves and the bed kind of stank because we’d been sleeping on it for two weeks. It is her whole universe, from the old crisps on her bed because she’s going through heartbreak.”
Leblebicioglu Kaveh noted that producing on a very small budget gave her team clarity. “When you decide on this framework, you don’t even have to think about it afterwards. You’re free to do whatever you want to do, so it didn’t feel limiting at all. There are so many things that are not being made that it’s great to work and write, and come out at the other end.”
Fahre praised Null47 for “taking a chance on a relationship drama and smaller, confined stories,” rather than focusing on genre dramas. He added Season 2 would “explore more of the complexities of the relationships” between Storm, Mosten and Nilsen’s characters.
Vanessa Lahitte, Beta’s Marketing & Acquisition Executive for Kids & Family Entertainment, said: “We are happy to see that Rebound is speaking to so many young people, which was the main goal of the series. Alex’s bedroom being the only set is a unique representation of the sanctuary that this space is for many adolescents, even more so since Covid, and captures how many emotions and stories one small room can contain.”
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