Worth watching

The stories of Swedish soldiers operating during the Bosnian War are dramatised in six-part drama A Life’s Worth. Writer Mona Masri and director Ahmed Abdullahi speak to DQ about creating this suspenseful and hopeful military series that finds its characters walking the line between duty and humanity.

Inspired by the first Swedish UN battalion to serve in the Bosnian War of 1992-1995, A Life’s Worth follows four young soldiers on their first overseas operation as they are confronted by the tangled and bloody conflict in the Balkans.

For Forss, Babic, Strand and Kilpinen, the mission proves impossible by peaceful means alone, while their commander, Andreasson, is torn between the desire to intervene and the duty to follow orders.

Over six episodes, the series blends suspense and emotion with life-or-death stakes and the stories of characters affected by the conflict as the Swedish soldiers navigate a treacherous line between duty and humanity.

As well as real events, the story is based on Magnus Ernström’s novel A Half Year, an Entire Life. Produced by YellowBird for Scandinavian streamer Viaplay and France’s Arte, it is directed by Ahmed Abdullahi (Top Dog) and written by Mona Masri (Snabba Cash) and Oliver Dixon (Paradis City).

The ensemble cast includes Johan Rheborg (Sunny Side), Edvin Ryding (Young Royals), Maxwell Cunningham (One More Time), Erik Enge (Tigers) and Toni Prince (Drugdealer).

Distributed by Viaplay Content Distribution, which has already sold the series to EITB in Spain and Vodafone in Greece, the show had its world premiere at French television festival Series Mania last month and will debut on Arte on June 19. Filming took place in Slovakia and Lithuania.

Here, Abdullahi and Masri join producer Maida Krak to tell DQ about bringing this story to the screen, why it’s not just a war drama and how the limited series might continue in the future.

What are the origins of the series?
Masri: It started with a book, then it evolved into something bigger than the book. The book gave us a lot of situations from the soldiers’ lives and what they knew and what they didn’t know about the conflict before going there, details about living in the camp, stuff like that.

Why was a limited series the right format for this story?
Masri: Everyone wanted to make a series with a big scope – that’s something I really like. And to tell the story of some Swedish soldiers going to this war in Bosnia, not really knowing what the conflict was about, and also then integrating the local community into the Swedish soldiers’ story in a natural way, and just adding layers. That’s the beauty of TV, that we can do that. In a feature film, it would be much more streamlined. You would have maybe one protagonist wanting one thing. We just wanted to create a real TV series.

How did you bring together the different elements of the story?
Masri: The conflict was mainly about three sides, the Croats, the Serbs and the Bosnians. So it was important for Oliver and I to have one character from each side [alongside the Swedish soldiers], because we wanted to show from a human perspective how this conflict could affect people, and how they were neighbours and then they started turning on each other. It was clear that we wanted three characters from the local civilian side.

We could have done things simpler. In hindsight, I can think about that. But on the other hand, that’s also why I think this is a series that’s very special to me, that we dared to make it a little bit more layered and rich.

Was it a difficult series to pitch?
Krak: [We pitched it] during a different time in Sweden, when we had a booming [TV] market. But it was difficult even during that period, and [it was hard to find] a way to finance it. But in the end, we did, and a lot has changed to where the market is today.

Abdullahi: It’s an extremely daring project. In Sweden, there’s never been any attempt to do this kind of war series. So we were walking on untouched territory, at least when it comes to Sweden and how people perceive those kinds of movies or series. I can imagine it was a really long uphill battle [to complete financing].

Krak: The TV world has changed and [the project] started in an era with a lot of confidence, more money. I think today it would be very difficult because it’s a pretty expensive show.

Ahmed, what was your interest in the scripts or the story?
Abdullahi: I came from a war-torn country [Somalia], but also I did Swedish military service, so I knew both worlds. I’ve seen it. And also, when I came to Sweden, I had a lot of friends from Bosnia so I’ve heard those stories and I felt like I was close to the subject. Of course, once I read the script and when I talked to the producers, I knew how I wanted to approach this – how to tell this story in a more nuanced way, but also [how to convey an] aspect of hope within the cinematography.

How did you create the atmosphere of the show?
Abdullahi: One of the things we actually took inspiration from was [the fact that] the real Swedish UN soldiers took a lot of pictures, so we had access to those images. That was one of the main things. We wanted to achieve that look. We’ve also seen several documentary films [on the war]. At the end of the day, we are doing this fantastic, big story with a limited budget, and it started with creative thoughts about how we can tell this story with the limitations we have, which the cinematographer and I really enjoyed.

There’s a big cast. How do you like to work with actors on set?
Abdullahi: After the casting period was over, we sent the Swedish actors to a military camp for a week with a former Swedish major. And even though it was really harsh, it made them bond with each other. They really became friends after that and still hang out with each other to this day.

Masri: They slept in the woods for a week, so they were really hungry. We went on the last day when they got microwave food and they were like, ‘Oh, this is so good!’

Krak: It continued during the whole shoot because there was a hierarchy in how the soldiers [actors] were accommodated. So the young guys were staying in small rooms.

Abdullahi: The colonel had the biggest suite. That continued for a month. After that, we stopped. But once they heard the colonel putting out commands in a military style, they became focused, so it was a lot of fun doing those things with them.
Of course, they had the military training for how to handle weapons and stuff like that. But at the same time, the real soldiers who [fought in the war] weren’t like trained soldiers – they did the Swedish military service and then this opportunity to join the UN came. So we wanted to keep it not like a Navy SEALs kind of story; just regular guys who happen to have guns in their hands.

After its premiere at Series Mania, what are you hopes for this show?
Masri: I hope it reaches an audience that is entertained and gets to learn something about this conflict, but mostly that they get attached or relate to the characters. I just hope this is a series that can travel and that it’s well received by the audience. In the end, as a filmmaker, you want people to watch what you do, you want to communicate, and I hope people like the story and the characters.

Abdullahi: One of the things we wanted to portray in the show was that, even though it’s a war drama, there are still real people in there doing daily stuff, so there is a lot of humour in the series, because people still need to get married, people still need to buy bread. So daily active life is in there too. Ultimately, it’s a series with hope in it.

Could A Life’s Worth continue after this season?
Masri: It’s a limited series. I have pitched an idea of making it into an anthology series, because we sent UN soldiers to other conflict areas like Somalia, Lebanon and the Congo. But for now it’s a limited series.

tagged in: A Life’s Worth, Ahmed Abdullahi, Arte, Mona Masri, Viaplay, Viaplay Content Distribution, Yellowbird