Sweden’s A-team – the local equivalent of CSI, a highly-trained special unit of detectives, created by Swedish writer Arne Dahl – is ready for the screen.

Last week Sweden’s Filmlance International and Danish major, Nordisk Film, started principal photography for a $22m (SEK 160m), 10 x 90mins series, which will bow on Swedish SVT and German ZDF television, before reaching the cinemas. Production will wrap in July 2011.

”Since the A-team does not have a single lead character, but an ensemble cast, we decided to introduce and market the show on television, to add to the potential of the theatrical release,” explained Nordic acquisitions manager Lone Korslund, of Nordisk Film.

”The series represents a new kind of thrillers, where a group of special investigators is called to solve very complicated cases. It is also a portrait of country – Sweden – which has lost its innocense, and is increasingly exposed to international crime,” she concluded.

Credited for 10 thrillers in Sjöwall-Wahlöö Beck franchise, Swedish director Harald Hamrell will realise the package from scripts by Cilla and Rolf Börjlind, who also wrote 23 episodes of Beck. Members of the A unit include Shanti Roney as team leader Paul Hjelm, Irene Lindh, Claes Ljungmark, Matrias Padin (Easy Money/Snabba cash), Magnus Samuelsson, Malin Arvidsson (183 Days/183 dagar), and Niklas Åkerfelt.

Under the pen name of Arne Dahl, Jan Arnald has written 11 Intercrime books about the detective unit, starting with Misterioso (1999), which is also the first to be adapted for the screen. Eleven (Elva) was published in 2008; they have all been translated into English.

Currently finishing his first novel in a new series to be published in 2011, Dahl is among the five nominées for this year’s European Crime Fiction Star Award. He has previously been honoured by the Swedish, Danish and German academies of crime-fiction.

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