Caliphate (Swedish: Kalifat) is a 2020 Swedish eight-part thriller drama TV series. It premiered on January 12, 2020, on Sveriges Television. It became the most-viewed series ever on SVT Play.[1]
The story is based on the real-life case of the Bethnal Green Trio, in which three teenage girls from London met jihad recruiters at their high school in February 2015. The television adaptation follows multiple characters including Fatima - a Swedish Security Service agent, Pervin - a young Swedish woman lured into Syria, and Sulle - an opinionated teenager groomed by the Islamic State/ISIL. The plot explores and revolves around themes such as religious extremism, Islamophobia, and human rights.
All eight episodes were directed by Goran Kapetanović. "Caliphate" was made available globally on Netflix on March 18.
The story starts with Pervin, a young Muslim woman from Sweden who lives in Raqqa, Syria, with her Islamic State
member husband Husam and their newborn daughter Latifa. Disillusioned
with life in Raqqa, Pervin is looking to return to Sweden. After
acquiring a cell phone from her neighbor and friend Tine (who is dragged
away from Pervin's home, where she was hiding trying to escape being
remarried after her husband's death), she contacts Dolores, an
anti-radicalization advocate in Sweden. Dolores puts Pervin in touch
with Fatima, who is an agent of the Swedish Security Service.
Fatima is at odds with the leadership due to some previous incident
with "Lorentz". Fatima starts talking with Pervin over the phone, and
tries to work her for intelligence related to a terror attack being planned in Sweden, in exchange for safe return for Pervin and her daughter to Sweden.
Pervin tells Fatima about "Al Musafir" or the Traveler, who is in
Sweden and is planning the attack. Al Musafir is Ibrahim "Ibbe" Haddad,
who is working as a teacher's assistant in a Muslim high school, while
recruiting others into the terror attack. He has already successfully
recruited two brothers - Jacob, a former prisoner and alcoholic, and
Emil, the younger and sensitive sibling. The two have a tense
relationship with their mother, who clearly favors Emil and looks down
on Jacob not only for his past but for his conversion to Islam. Under a different identity Ibbe also recruits Miryam, raised in Baghdad, and promises her marriage in exchange for her work in his plans.
Ibbe simultaneously tries to radicalize young girls at the high
school by sharing ISIS recruitment videos and propaganda. He
successfully recruits Sulle, a Palestine activist, and her friend Kerima, both 15-year-old girls who start wearing the hijab and taking lessons in following Sharia law.
The girls are shown pictures of palaces and told that if they moved to
the Caliphate, they could live in luxury and be part of something
special. Sulle's parents wise up to their daughter's radicalization, and
try to stop her by threatening to marry her off to a relative in
Jordan. Sulle inadvertently pulls her 13-year-old sister Lisha into the
ideology, the implications of which are not fully realized until later
in the show. At home, Kerima is physically abused by her alcoholic
father, who has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after experiencing the Second Chechen War; stalking her, Ibbe takes Kerima into his home to indoctrinate her further.
Fatima does not reveal her source (Pervin) to her superiors, but
does reveal vague details about a terror plot. Her superiors tell her to
drop the investigation, and have her suspended for consuming cannabis.
She remains in touch with her boyfriend, Calle, who's also in the
Security Service, and continues to share information with him. She
continues extracting information from Pervin and tries to piece together
details of the plot. She gets on Jacob and Emils' trail when she
investigates intel from Pervin about an abandoned shooting range. Jacob
gets her license plate, and tracks it down.
Dolores and Ibbe are at an anti-radicalization meeting when Ibbe
steps out to talk with Jacob. The host shows an ISIS video and points to
a tattoo on the forearm of one of the terrorists. Later while at a
cafe, Dolores sees the tattoo on Ibbe's arm. After Ibbe drops her off,
she calls Fatima to tell her she has important information, who asks her
to meet her at Fatima's apartment. When she goes there, she is stabbed
by an assailant and dies. When Fatima arrives, an alert has been issued
to bring her in, and she plans to escape. She goes to Dolores's house to
get some cash and supplies, but two cops end up there. She locks them
in a bedroom at gun point, which triggers a manhunt for her. She finds
shelter at the home of her dad's colleague.
Pervin becomes the focus of attention for one of Husam's
colleagues (Ahmed), who arrives one night at her house and catches her
talking to Fatima. He rapes her, and is about to kill her when she stabs
him to death. She dumps his body in her neighbors' well. Husam is under
the influence of sleeping medicines and happens to walk into the
kitchen and see the blood on the floor, but Pervin convinces him that he
is dreaming. He never quite forgets this and becomes convinced that he
killed Ahmed, until Pervin finally tells him the truth.
Fatima seeks helps to extricate Pervin, and a plan is set to
remove her from Raqqa. Meanwhile, Sulle and Kerima have plane tickets to
travel to Turkey, and are picked up by Ibbe and the woman who has been
teaching them about Islam. At the last minute, Sulle's younger sister
Lisha joins them in the car and they set off for the airport. Sulle lied
to her parents about going to a basketball game. Her father Suleiman,
who voices his disdain of religion, finishes work early and decides to
go and watch her game, but sees that the stadium is empty. He calls
Calle who sets off an alert with authorities in Germany and Turkey. They
believe they have tracked the girls on their way to Istanbul, only to realize that their passports were switched and that the girls were in fact in Ankara.
They decide to intercept the transport vehicle at the border between
Turkey and Syria. They manage to rescue everyone except for Lisha, who
is en route to Syria.
Calle convinces Fatima to seek help from Pervin to save Lisha.
Pervin and her daughter have reached their transport vehicle when Fatima
convinces her to return home and save Lisha. In return, Fatima would
personally come to Syria to rescue them all. Pervin convinces Husam to
take Lisha on as his second wife.
Before leaving to carry out the attack, Jacob stabs his mother to
death in their kitchen. Fatima is trailing Jacob and Emil, but loses
their trail after they switch cars at their mothers' house. Fatima
learns of the three terror targets minutes before the police close in on
her location, and she is taken into custody before she can share any
information. In return for the information, she promises to extricate
Husam along with Pervin and Lisha. All three terror attacks are stopped
anyway by the Security Service, who it turns out knew about them all
along. They kept Fatima in the dark because they did not trust her. In
exchange for her silence, she is released from jail. Ibbe sets a bomb
off within a garage, and escapes narrowly by disguising himself as a
woman.
Fatima travels to Syria to rescue Pervin, Lisha, and Husam.
Minutes before she arrives, Husam's colleague Omar arrives to take Husam
to perform a suicide bombing.
Husam tries to buy time but Lisha, who is completely radicalized and
unwilling to return to Sweden, reveals their escape plan to Omar. Omar
shoots Pervin in the back and is about to shoot Husam, when Fatima
arrives and shoots him. They quickly move to the car, but Lisha refuses
to join them, so they leave her behind. They make it outside Raqqa, but
Pervin dies just after the border post. Husam carries his daughter, and
they make it back to Sweden.
Sulle and Kerima are interrogated by the Security Service. Sulle
gives up Ibbe's identity in an effort to save her sister Lisha. Kerima
tries to commit suicide, and is taken to a mental health facility where
she gets her hands on a cell phone and warns Ibbe that his cover may be
blown. Calle goes to the school to bring Ibbe into custody, but Ibbe
escapes. Kerima meets up with Ibbe and decides to participate in a new
attack on a girls' concert. Kerima is to wear a suicide vest
that is locked so that she cannot remove it once she puts it on. Ibbe
convinces Kerima that he and Sulle are also part of the attack, and will
be wearing similar suicide vests. Once at the concert, after putting on
the suicide vest Kerima texts Sulle only to learn that Ibbe had lied,
and Sulle is not involved at all in the plan. In the concert facility
toilets, Kerima briefly attempts to remove the vest, but fails, so
instead warns some of the attendees in there, who flee, and waits for
the bomb to explode. Ibbe triggers the bomb.
The series was produced by Filmlance (The Bridge) for Swedish broadcaster SVT, and sold by Endemol Shine International.[2] It is based on an idea by Wilhelm Behrman, who created the series together with Nikolas Rockström.[2] It was directed by the Guldbagge-awarded director Goran Kapetanovic.[2] It was shot in Stockholm and Jordan.
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