Trigger warning: this series contains scenes of physical and sexual violence. It begins with three women. The first, Pervin: a Swedish woman living in Syria. Clad in a burqa and carrying her baby, she steps out into the streets of Raqqa before being quickly herded into the town square to witness the public mutilation of an alleged traitor of the Islamic State. The second, Fatima: a frustrated agent, working within the Middle East section of the Swedish Security Service. She hurtles around Stockholm, her behaviour becoming increasingly erratic as her professional methods and aspirations are continuously foiled by her superiors. The third, Sulle: a disillusioned teenager, struggling to find any representations of herself or her Muslim heritage at her urban Swedish high school.
« Kalifat’s apparent lack of hype does the series an injustice. » Such is how we are introduced to the Swedish series Kalifat, director Goran Kapetanović’s latest work. So popular was it in its country of origin (it became the most viewed series ever on SVT Play), that it was soon to be taken up by
