The Lost writer Ulf Ryberg and producer Patrick Ryborn on SVT’s refugee drama

The six-part limited series The Lost (Försvunna människor) is penned by seasoned writer Ulf Ryberg, credited for SVT mini-series The Laser Man (2005) and the Bafta-nominated film Headhunters (2011) based on a Jo Nesbø novel, which launched Morten Tyldum’s international career.

The first episode kicks off with the main character Erwin (Peter Viitanen), who is pressured from his truck-driving company boss Lunt (Ville Virtanen) to do a quick delivery job from Denmark to Sweden, although Erwin is emotionally stressed, trying to cope with his father in a care home and his wife asking for divorce. At least he has a loving relationship with his teen daughter.

It’s a hot summer day. Inside the tanker, are…eight Syrian refugees. Erwin does the illegal smuggling because he wants to help the refugees, but his boss does it for the money. Among the refugees are the pregnant woman Mouna and a young feverish boy, who cannot cope with the stuffy air in the tank. Erwin hides them in the back of his cabin, but suddenly he sees a police road check in front of him. He has ended up at a point where his life will take a dramatic turn.

I have been carrying this story many years,” said Ryberg to nordicfilmandtvnews.com “Refugee smuggling is something you read about all the time in the news. The traffickers are criminals who don’t really care if the refugees will die. But here, it’s a very different story. You have two ordinary guys who do it for two reasons. The driver because he wants to help, and the owner of the truck company because he wants to save his business on the brink of bankruptcy. They aren’t murderers and criminals.“ “After a fatal mistake, they try to find a way out from their nightmarish situation, but get deeper and deeper into trouble.”

Ryberg says it was important to make the characters ‘likeable’ and vulnerable, so that the audience would identify with them. “You can understand their motives and you feel what they feel,” he underlined.

For producer Patrick Ryborn, The Lost is a change of genre, after several comedies and family films. “The key for me is really to tell a good story-whatever the genre or format,” he said.

Actress-turned-director Tuva Magnusson (Solsidan, The Most Forbidden) joined the project a year before the start of principal photography, when the scripts were written. “Tuva did a beautiful job in establishing the contrast between the dark story and the bright Swedish summer and beautiful environment. Our goal was to make this show as engaging as possible for the audience,” insists the producer.

Top Swedish casting director Tusse Lande, (also attached to the James Bond films Spectre and Skyfall) then collaborated with Magnusson and Ryborn to find the best actors for each part, including Peter Viitanen (The Restaurant, Real Humans, Ted) in his first major leading role, Finland’s prolific actor Ville Virtanen (Bordertown, Transport) as well as Sandra Stojiljkovic (Thin Blue Line) cast as the police officer Anja.

Filming took place in and around Gothenburg-Västra Götaland in the summer and fall 2021.

The film was produced by Unlimited Stories in collaboration with Iceland’s Sagafilm, in co-production with SVT, Film i Väst, with co-financing from NRK, DR, C More/MTV3 in Finland, RÚV, and Lumiere Group, Benelux.The show was supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

REinvent handling rights has sold the series to AMC Networks for Portugal and Spain.