When it comes to dark and emotional dramas, one director that should spring to mind is Anna Zackrisson. Her previous work directing Snow Angels left many people proclaiming how incredible the series was but also how very dark and upsetting it had been too. When Nordic Watchlist had reached out to Anna to talk about her new series Deliver Me, she gave us a heads up; ‘Its another sad one‘.

She wasn’t joking either – here the story centres around the death of a teenager and the best friend who shot him. The five-part series pulls you into the ripple effect that stems from the shooting and the emotional damage it causes to all of those involved. It is heavy, it is heart-breaking, but it is also an incredibly important piece of television in an age where gangsters aren’t always being immortalised anymore.

Certainly from a perspective of Nordic television we have begun to see a trend in series’ (and even documentaries) about the horrendous effects gang culture can have on people.

Top Dog‘s second season really showed how dangerous life can be in the places no one thinks about, Grow was a brutal take on even the gangsters themselves trying to make it in the criminal world; whilst most recently we saw Prisoner show that even behind bars gang culture can still have catastrophic effects on people’s lives.

Meanwhile at Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival, Sweden’s G-12 Scenes from Gottsunda was a runner up in the Nordic Dox Award – a film that scarily showed that what we have been seeing in these fictional series is very much real and happening.

It was Netflix who had approached Anna about directing the series Deliver Me.

“It is a very sad and scary story but there was also this love and light that was there between these two boys and their friendship. There was something more to talk about rather than just the criminality – I felt that narrative was interesting from that angle“, the director explains.

There is no hiding the fact though that the criminality is very present in this story and Anna had help with the dialogue from her assistant director Amin Hussein; “It was very interesting learning from him – he had experience with racism and I had my own experience with sexism, both of which play a role in the series. Discussing these things with him was so important for the authenticity of the series and it’s tone.”

It allowed the team to look at this series from a different angle, this wasn’t going to be some cool hard series; it instead was looking at the truth and the emotion involved: “The emotional danger is what I really wanted to talk about.”

The series became a platform for portraying the kinds of stories one might read in the newspaper, but showing the gravity of the situation if you knew more about the people lives affected in the story.

“You read in the headlines someone has been shot, then another, and another. In the first episode it becomes one of those stories and deepens the perspective to tell what actually happens on a night like that. A whole series of people have been affected; someone who has been shot, the relatives of that person, then the person who shot someone, and I thought it was an interesting way of starting the series.”

Turning our attention to the cast there is no hiding the fact that the team had stuck gold with everyone involved in the series – in particular the younger cast with the two leads Olle Strand and Yasir Hassan putting in an absolutely phenomenal performance. The series relies a lot on a more physical performance rather always the delivery of lines, and it is this which makes it so convincing which, in turn, makes it so heart-breaking.

Dogge’s vacant looks and few words is electrifying, whilst the inner turmoil going on with his best friend Billy is almost too much to bear at times. Then there is the rest of the characters and in particular Abdirahman Mohamed as Tusse – I’ve never wanted to protect someone so much but would be too scared to given the dire situation everyone finds themselves in.

“The casting was a quite a journey. Our casting director’s team were scouting for so long and they had almost a 1,000 kids audition for the roles. Yasir was found in a school and Olle was spotted on the street – and we really like the look of him and his face – when I read the revised script I could just see his face.”

It is incredible to think that a lot of the younger cast were amateurs either doing their first or second series mixing it up with such seasoned stars like Yusra Warsama, Magnus Krepper, and Ane Dahl Torp.

Stapling it all together is a powerhouse performance from someone who is just everywhere at the moment – Ardalan Esmaili. I first discovered the actor when I watched Snow Angels, then I spotted him in a number of series such as Grow and Snabba Cash.

I was very lucky to have seen him in The Charmer which was a debut feature film by director Milad Alami (a film which is criminal in itself that it has not had a release here in the UK) and he was back in Alami’s Opponent which was released in the UK last month. Get used to seeing him because he is slowly owning 2024 at the moment.

Was he someone that Anna had seeked out to be playing this role? The answer is an easy one.

“Yes of course, it was so important for me to have him involved. He was reluctant to play a police officer at the beginning though, but we share similar interests in what themes we want to talk about which lead to lots of interesting discussions on how we wanted to portray these characters. His character is too emotionally involved and that leads to a lot of conflict within the system.”

“The astounding thing about Ardalan is that he can convey any complex emotion, theme or perspective in front of the camera. Whatever we discuss –  politics or structural human behaviour. He always finds a way to transform that into his character. He has an enormous presence in what his does. He is just a thrilling collaborator and amazing to watch.”

Something else that has already had some Reddit posts buzzing is the soundtrack used in the series, but many have found when they have tried to ‘shazam’ the song that nothing has been found – how could this be?

“That material is actually unreleased – it is in fact my brother who had worked on that track“, the director explains. “I also worked with the composer Rebekka Karijord on this and she has done a lot of the score. I wanted some other music featured so I brought my brother who wrote a lot of the songs like he had for Snow Angels“.

Anna wanted to also bring in some more female-led vocal tracks to help counter the level of masculinity that dominates throughout the show. It didn’t need more heavy drums and beats – it needed to be slowed down a bit to help you really take in the repercussions of the scenes that are unfolding in front of you.

“You go for the emotion rather than the action, you know? This series needed something to contrast the roughness with something emotional.”

When discussing how the series concludes one might think that it is left open enough in a way that might suggest a follow up could happen, but Anna is happy enough that this series concludes in a way a miniseries should.

“I never thought of it that way. I didn’t do an open ending to continue the story, but the fact is that this story doesn’t end – it will keep happening.“

Deliver Me is an exceptional piece of work and continues to showcase how talented a director Anna Zackrisson is, for those that have not seen Snow Angels we strongly recommend you watch it. Her work might be hard to stomach but the performances she draws out of her cast is phenomenal. We genuinely can’t wait to see what the director will work on next – watch this space!

Deliver Me is out now on Netflix and available worldwide.