Peace processes need to be made visible, believes the team behind the new Finnish drama series, Peacemaker – "We set out to show how complicated the situation on the ground really is"
Irina Björklund acts the role of the main character Ann-Mari Sundell in the series Peacemaker. Photo: Matila Röhr Productions
We’ve seen more than enough war on our screens. It’s high time to show what peace looks like, believe scriptwriter Eriikka Etholén-Paju and Prix Europa -nominated producer, Johanna Enäsuo.
Ann-Mari Sundell is a peace negotiator that would rather be in Finland sorting out her fishing nets. She’s the main character of a new new drama series Peacemaker by Matila Röhr Productions, released on the Finnish national broadcaster Yle’s streaming service Yle Areena in September.
The ten-episode series, starring Irina Björklund and directed by the acclaimed AJ Annila, has already been nominated for Prix Europa, but the road there wasn’t easy. We’re accustomed to entertainment that features war and violence, but it took a while to get a series about peace produced, as the processes behind peace have rarely been depicted on the big screen.
The five-year process got its start when two friends were out for walk one night in Helsinki. This is how Eriikka Etholén-Paju remembers it:
– When we rounded the corner of Lasipalatsi, Johanna blurted out: “Why hasn’t anyone made a series about peace? We even have the famous peace negotiator Martti Ahtisaari! What if you and I did it?”
Johanna Enäsuo (left) and Eriikka Etholén-Paju wrote the story to happen in Turkey, but the events are observed through the eyes of a Finnish-Swedish peace negotiator.
This started the duo, Johanna Enäsuo, who’d dreamt of being a war correspondent, and Eriikka Etholén-Paju, a historian and a scriptwriter, down a years-long quest into the world of conflict transformation. In order to faithfully portray every nuance of the peace process, they talked to everyone from peace negotiators to refugee experts, from body guards to UN conflict experts.
– It was by no means a given that the events would unfold in present day. For a long time, we leaned towards Kosovo or some other past conflict, but through a long and meandering journey, we ended up in present day Turkey, says Enäsuo.
In the end, the story revolves around Ann-Mari Sundell, a Finn-Swede and seasoned peace negotiator, who is pulled back in action to mediate a conflict between Turkey and its Kurdish minority.
When the writing process began, the situation in Turkey was more stable than it is today, as both an attempted coup and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s tightened grip on power unfolded during script development.
– All of that took place only after we’d set the story there. It made us question what we could dream up, as real-world events started to seem even more terrifying than our fictional storyline! At the same time, it made us even more convinced it was a story that needed to be told, says Enäsuo.
“It made us question what we could dream up, as real-world events started to seem even more terrifying than our fictional storyline!”
– In the real world, Turks and Kurds haven’t yet been able to build lasting peace. We figured we could try it out in the world of fiction – maybe that would spark people to reconsider how it could be achieved, adds Etholén-Paju.
Reconciliation, not explosions
One of the main things to solve during the scriptwriting process was how to deal with such an explosive subject.
– We decided that the main theme, running throughout all scenes, had to be reconciliation. No matter what the events were, no matter what happened, we wanted the viewers to know that our characters were driven by a desire to create peace. We didn’t want to follow the American template of exploding everything just to create drama, says Etholén-Paju.
At the same time, the team was acutely aware of being outsiders looking in on someone else’s real-life conflict.
The team is eager to find out what the Turkish and Kurdish viewers will think of the series.
– We knew we needed to thread carefully. On the other hand, our Kurdish cast members were grateful to finally have somebody shining a light on this topic. It’s almost impossible for them to portray it domestically because of the ongoing conflict, says Enäsuo.
During the shoot, Enäsuo was concerned about how the Turkish and Kurdish cast members would see the script.
– I kept wanting to talk to everyone to see how they felt. Luckily the actors seemed to get that we didn’t want to point fingers at anyone, the opposite. We’re equally critical of Finland and our weapons industry, we’re showing how arms export is big business for Finland – all while we portray ourselves as the most neutral peace negotiators in the world.
Of course, there were many and long discussions about the conflict, hashed out between the Turkish and Kurdish cast, but all in a good, constructive spirit.
– The actors stayed away from making things too political. Granted, people who didn’t stand behind the script had already been filtered out from the cast, Enäsuo continues.
Peace, forgiveness, or justice?
What helped ease tensions between real life and television was that all plot points were deliberately fictional.
– The series makes references to the Oslo peace negotiations between Turkey and its Kurds, but since all real proceedings are classified, we were forced to come up with our own, fictional peace negotiations, says Etholén-Paju.
At the same time, the team needed to be sensitive to a number of different factions and differing points of view amongst both Turks and Kurds – something Enäsuo and Etholén-Paju were keen to portray.
– Instead of streamlining and dumbing down the story to fit a convenient narrative structure, we set out to show how complicated the situation on the ground really is. When we looked into past peace negotiation processes, we found a surprising amount of give and take; it’s a world of trade offs. Both parties are convinced they sit on the right side of history, so how do they even find the willingness to embark on the road to peace together? The hard question is what comes first: peace, forgiveness, or justice, Enäsuo ponders.
“Both parties are convinced they sit on the right side of history, so how do they even find the willingness to embark on the road to peace together?”
The media tends to create extremely simplified conflict narratives, and Enäsuo is keen to discuss the power our news sources have on shaping our worldview.
Johanna Enäsuo (left.) and Eriikka Etholén-Paju want to raise awareness of peace processes and inspire viewers to think about how to do things differently.
– I am currently reading a book called Humankind by Rutger Bregman. The author shows how it is crucial which stories get air time, and which ones are ignored. As an example, media leads us to believe that crises brings out the worst in us, whereas study after study proves the opposite; that when times are the worst, we see the best of humanity.
So, will we see more of the drama behind conflict transformation processes in the near future? That depends on whether the creators can secure funding for another season. But where we might see Ann-Mari Sundell next is a tightly held secret.
– The overarching theme of how complex and problematic peace processes are will be important for any future seasons as well. But we might shift our focus to portraying how grassroots actors and the will of people influence the peace process. On that level, the desire for peace is much more deep-rooted than with politicians, who often use peace as just one part of international trades deals.
Peace Invaders is a Finnish NGO working to harness the power of technology and media for conflict transformation.
We want peace. We mean business.
Peace Invaders blogging crew
HANNA PARTANEN
Journalist, filmmaker and executive director of Peace Invaders. Email me at hanna@peaceinvaders.fi and let’s start a conversation!
MARI TARKKONEN
Historian and marketing manager specialising in narratives, peacetech and circular economy innovation. Email me at mari@peaceinvaders.fi