Like a 15th-century Borgen, this wintry Danish drama is focused on a woman who wields political power, the men who want to bring her down, and the choices she must make in order to ensure her legacy stands.

Directed by Charlotte Sieling and shot in and around Prague, mostly, Margrete: Queen of the North is based both on fact and conjecture. Margrete I (played here by Trine Dyrholm) is famous in Scandinavian history as the ruler who forged the Kalmar Union, a pact between the fractious and occasionally warring kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Trine Dyrholm in Margrete: Queen of the North. Photo © Dusan Martineck.

It is also true that her reign (1387–1412) threw up an intriguing mystery: the so-called ‘false Oluf’ episode, in which a man appeared at court claiming to be Margrete’s son (who had reportedly died of the plague 15 years earlier) and demanding the restoration of his lands and titles.

Here, Sieling (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jesper Fink and Maya Ilsøe) has Oluf’s reappearance coincide with the engagement of Margrette’s adopted son Erik to the child Princess Philippa, daughter...