Caliphate

Screenwriter Wilhelm Behrman got the idea for the series in 2015 after seeing a surveillance image from Gatwick Airport of three teenage girls, dubbed the 'Bethnal Green trio' in British newspapers, who were on their way to Raqqa to join ISIS. He said the image was haunting partly because the girls were almost exactly the same age as his own daughter, and he saved it to his phone knowing he wanted to write something based on it.

A hostage drama in Paris later gave Behrman the idea to combine two parallel storylines into one narrative.

Behrman teamed up with writer Niklas Rockström, with whom he had previously collaborated on the thriller series 'Innan vi dör,' and together they conducted research with Muslim scholars, imams, and a source within the Swedish Security Service (Säpo).

The finished synopsis was pitched first to production company Filmlance International and then to Sveriges Television; both accepted the project, and Netflix bought the distribution rights outside the Nordic countries.

Director Goran Kapetanović originally recommended the role of Fatima to actress Aliette Opheim, who initially turned it down because she wanted to play something other than 'just a police officer' and found the many phone-call scenes too technical and isolating; she changed her mind after being won over by the ensemble cast and interwoven storylines.

To prepare for the role of Husam, actor Amed Bozan (in his first-ever film role) stopped shaving his hair and beard and lost 13 kilograms in two months, while also studying individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder to authentically portray a character losing touch with reality.

Actresses Gizem Erdogan and Nora Rios read Åsne Seierstad's book 'Two Sisters' (2016), which depicts two radicalized sisters in Norway who plan to travel to Syria to fight against Bashar al-Assad, as preparation for their roles.

The first season was filmed over three months in Stockholm and in Amman, Jordan, between 2018 and 2019, with the Raqqa scenes shot in a suburb of Amman in autumn 2018.

Cinematographer Jonas Alarik and director Kapetanović aimed for a documentary feel rather than an 'American, glossy or pompous' style, drawing inspiration from the TV series 'Gomorrah,' particularly its long takes and raw, unglamorous aesthetic.

Caliphate became the most-viewed series ever on SVT Play.

At the 2020 Kristallen awards, Gizem Erdogan and Amed Bozan won Best Actress and Best Actor in a TV production.

The series sparked significant public debate even before its premiere, with critics divided between fears that it romanticized or relativized jihadist violence and fears that it would be Islamophobic; commentators and journalists such as Bilan Osman and Ivar Arpi publicly debated its portrayal of Muslims and extremism.