The English language feature Hammarskjöld produced by Unlimited Stories with backing from Nordisk Film & TV Fond will be released this Christmas in Sweden via Nordisk Film.

Per Fly’s long-gestated feature project co-written with Ulf Ryberg (Headhunters, The Lost) is both a political thriller and a personal portrait of the legendary Swedish UN General Secretary and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dag Hammarskjöld, who perished in a mysterious plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in 1961. Patrik Ryborn is producing for Unlimited Stories.

Next to Persbrandt who plays the Swedish diplomat are Sara Soulié, Thure Lindhardt, Francis Chouler, Cian Barry, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Colin Salmon and Richard Brake.

According to a statement from sales outfit Beta Cinema who will unveil exclusive footage at Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM), the film will focus on the last seven months of Hammarskjöld’s life.

We are in 1961, at the peak of the Cold War, and Hammarskjöld has been serving for seven years as UN General Secretary. After decolonisation, he takes it upon himself to bring peace to the African countries, thwarting plans from powerful entrepreneurs and world leaders to further exploit natural resources. His life is turned upside down when his old friend Peter shows up in New York. Dag realises that he has missed out on an important part of life and starts questioning his vision. When UN peacekeepers are killed in Congo, he sees no other way than to impose peace by new measures and leads the UN troops on their first war mission. He boards a plane in a final attempt to negotiate a cease-fire, well aware of the danger of his mission.

Ryborn and Fly said they have taken some liberties with the facts for storytelling purposes. “Some characters are amalgamations of real individuals, some encounters and events have been added. But they are all within the scope of what could reasonably have happened,” they stated. “It is a dense political thriller at the same time as it is a personal portrait of the man Dag Hammarskjöld, his doubts, convictions and longing for an ordinary life. We will never know the exact truth about his death, but we think we are as close as you can get,” they said.

“With despots currently at the head of many countries, our world today needs more than ever, someone like Dag Hammarskjöld and a UN that would truly make a difference,” added Ryborn.

Tassilo Hallbauer, Head of Sales & Acquisitions at Beta Cinema says the film will include results of recent investigations about the unsolved circumstances of Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crash. “His uncompromising moral stance will inspire audiences worldwide, and to see how much he sacrificed for peace makes for highly emotional, unforgettable moments,” he asserted.

Hammarskjöld (working title) is co-produced by Nordisk Film, SVT, C More, Film i Väst, Nordsvensk Filmunderhållning, Maipo Film in Norway, with support from the Swedish Film Institute, the Norwegian Film Institute and Nordisk Film & TV Fond. Nordisk Film will handle the release in Scandinavia.

The feature marks the first international collaboration between Stockholm-based Unlimited Stories and the German group Beta Film since its subsidiary Beta Nordic Studios acquired a 51% stake in the Swedish company in 2021.

Unlimited Stories’ recent productions include the SVT drama series The Lost (Försvunna människor), also based on a script by Ryberg.

At the upcoming EFM in Berlin (February 16-22), Beta Cinema will handle the market premieres of the Norwegian film Ellos Eatnu-Let the River Flow, winner of an Audience and FIPRESCI award in Göteborg, and the Icelandic conspiracy thriller Operation Napoleon by Óskar Þór Axelsson.

The mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjöld was also the subject of Mads Brügger’s 2019 docu-satire Cold Case Hammarskjöld in which the director himself and private investigator Göran Björkdahl get on a mission to hunt for truths.