‘Smilla’s Sense of Snow’ Series Scooped by AMC+
We've gotten lucky; the new 'Smilla’s Sense of Snow' series has found a home in the U.S.
When we first saw Viaplay and Germany’s ARD Degeto teaming up in 2020 to make the first TV series adaptation of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, I’m afraid we rather wrote it off. Based on Peter Høeg’s worldwide bestseller, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow (published as Smilla’s Sense of Snow in the U.S.), the novel was first adapted as a feature film in the mid-1990s, and the mid-2025 series debut is only the second adaptation in three decades.
However, as we’ve mentioned previously, Viaplay is the least successful of the niche European streaming services that launched in the U.S. since 2010. The service folded in the U.K. a few years ago due to low subscriber numbers, but it insists on staying active in the U.S., and shows it produces (like Rebus) wind up trapped there, on a platform no one watches.
However, we got lucky. SBS, Australia’s national multicultural and multilingual public broadcaster, picked up the six-part series, and ITV in the U.K. did too. As a result, the series wound up shopped around the U.S., with AMC+ ultimately securing the rights. Considering it’s been thirty years since the novel was first published, it’s a little amazing the dystopian story is more relevant today than ever before, with its questions of identity and origin in this era of advancing globalization, plus socially predominant topics such as the energy crisis, surveillance, the climate catastrophe, and a clear tendency towards nationalism on a political level in many Western countries.
Here’s the synopsis:
Copenhagen 2040: Smilla Jaspersen lives in a near-future surveillance state under threat from an impending energy crisis. She is alone and leads a withdrawn life until she meets a young Inuit boy who finds a way to her heart. When the boy suddenly dies in mysterious circumstances, Smilla wants to know why. Her search for answers leads her to the icy scenery of Greenland and right to the center of dangerous political power games. Smilla’s extraordinary abilities are the key to the truth - about the boy and her own identity.
Filippa Coster-Waldau (Salsa) stars as the titular Smilla, co-starring alongside Elyas M’Barek (SOKO München) as Rahid Youseffi and Henry Lloyd-Hughes (The Thursday Murder Club) as tech mogul Karsten Tork. The supporting cast includes Amanda Collin (House of the Dragon), Set Sjöstrand (Kill Jackie), Morten Suurballe (Vikings), Alexandre Willaume (COBRA), and Silver Wolfe (North of North).
(SBS)
Amma Asante (Belle) adapted the novel alongside Clive Bradley and directed all episodes, with Alicia Remirez producing. Asante is also an Executive Producer alongside Oliver Berben, Robert Kulzer, Pipaluk K. Jørgensen, and Tina Hastings. The series was financed by FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, Creative Europe – MEDIA Program of the European Union, German Motion Picture Fund, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, North Finland Film Commission, Film Tax Incentive of the Republic of Lithuania, LIAA Support Program for International Film Productions and Business Oulu.
Smilla’s Sense of Snow does not yet have a release date on AMC+, but is expected to arrive in late 2026 or early 2027.
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