Exclusive: The 6x30’ Swedish series is the latest bet on young adult short form drama from the Swedish pubcaster. The premiere on SVT Play is set for February 3rd.

Toplining the cast of the female-driven crime drama Fake (Fejk), are newcomer actor/singer Renaida Braun, Young Royals’ familiar faces Frida Argento and Malte Gårdinger, Felicia Kartal (Hammarvik), and Dakota Trancher Williams (The Bonus Family).

The series is created, written and directed by Maria Karlsson Thörnqvist, credited for the web-based multi-season Festen (The Party). It’s a home-coming story about dark secrets, set in a fictitious place bordering forest and lakes, where everyone knows everyone but everything isn’t quite as it seems bellow the surface.

The story focuses on three young girls whose fates intertwine after a dramatic incident where they believe they have accidentally killed a guy after an attempted rape at a summer party. Each-and-every one of them has their own reasons to keep quiet, as they decide not to tell anyone about the incident.

Thörnqvist who was inspired by Big Little Lies, Riverdale and Twin Peaks, said her first intention with the show was to tackle boundaries, how to stay within them and how to interpret them. “The ideas came from the research we did for Festen, but it was also a big topic on many of the accounts that young people follow. Who is right and wrong in a matter, who is lying, who has the right to interpret? Boundaries are not always so clear, and there are many grey zones,” said the creator, citing notably the difficulty to say ‘no’, especially as a girl. “It takes a lot of courage to say a clear no and sometimes also a clear yes. Especially if there is pressure for you to say the opposite. And being true is not always and necessarily about telling the truth, but being true to oneself, one's values and ideals,” Thörnqvist observed.

Screen representation
The creator said the fictitious small village of Sjöhem was important for her “to be freer with the form and to make it easier for a large audience to identify. In the same way, having a mixed cast was also quintessential to allow for greater representation on screen.

“It's super important to me to have a mixed cast. I generally think that Swedish channels have fallen behind when it comes to representation,” she stated. “Netflix is a thousand times better and it is clear, Netflix is an international company that addresses the whole world as an audience. But I don't think people really understand in Sweden that the young audience in Sweden is a mixed population and that you expect a different type of cast. And how damn important it is to see someone who looks like yourself on the box. It's no longer just a matter of being politically correct, it's a matter of being truly relevant!

Thörnqvist said she was extremely pleased to find Braun for one of the main parts. “We cast a lot of people in a huge mix, and Renaida did a fantastic casting and even though it's not about being black at all, I'm very happy that Renaida as a black girl has the lead role. It is not very common for a black girl to have the lead role in a series in Sweden and I think that is needed!”

Fake was produced by Filip Iversen and executive-produced by SVT’s Ulrika Midunger.

SVT Head of Sales & Business Development Paulette Rosas Hott said she is looking forward to presenting the show to global buyers, at the upcoming TV markets.

The sales outfit’s other YA series Eagles was acquired by Viaplay for the UK and the US.

At this week’s TV Drama Vision in Göteborg SVT is represented by the event crime drama Blackwater, competing for the Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize, and the work in progress Painkiller directed and co-written by Gabriela Pichler, set to premiere in 2024.

Head of Drama Anna Croneman will also take the stage to present SVT’s hottest series ‘On the Horizon', and to discuss her participation in the European Writers Club.