Kurdish actor wins top Swedish television award for role in ‘Caliphate’ series
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdish actor Amed Bozan won the award for best actor on Thursday for his role in a Swedish drama series Caliphate at the Kristallen TV Award, the official television awards in the European nation.
“It was the first time and I am really happy about it. It's like the biggest Television Award that you can win in Sweden, so I’m really happy about it,” the 31-year-old actor told Kurdistan 24 in an exclusive interview.
Moreover, his colleague Gizem Erdogan won the award for Best Actress for her role in the series, which premiered worldwide on Netflix on March 18 and which tells the story of youth in Sweden that become radicalized and join the Islamic State in Syria and the effect it has on their families.
Bozan is not the only Kurd in the series. Iranian Kurdish actress also Ala Riani plays the character of a mother of two daughters who join the extremist group.
Amed Bozan was born in Amed (Diyarbakir), located in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey, also known as Bakur. He moved to Sweden in 1992, when he was only three years old.
In the Caliphate series, he plays the role of the Islamic State fighter Husam, who lives with Pervin (played by Erdogan) and their newborn daughter Latifa in Raqqa, Syria. At the time the series takes place, Raqqa is still the de facto Islamic State capital as it is regularly bombed by the US-led Coalition.
Bozan explained that it was difficult for him to play the role of an Islamic State fighter, “Not only because I’m Kurdish, but it’s always hard to play somebody that is completely the opposite of someone who you are as a human being and to play somebody like that who is committing crimes against humanity.”
“But my work is to understand human beings, no matter their values or their ways of seeing the world. And I'm trying to – like as honestly as I can – to just to portray that.”
Caliphate did not focus on the Kurdish fight against the Islamic State, since doing so would have distracted from the primary storyline.
“It was about Swedish people, Swedish teenagers joining ISIS, and the fact is when Fatima is going down and when she is trying to get out, she is always getting help from the Kurds.”
“You can even hear Omar (another Jihadist character) talking about the Kurds as a big threat to the Islamic State and they get the idea,” he continued. “But at the same time, if you give this more space in the series, the series will start to be about something else than what it is right now.”
What the show explores, and what he had to grasp to convincingly play his part, was radicalism.
Bozan said that, at first, his Kurdish friends found it funny that he was to play an Islamic State militant fighter, but they ultimately understood “that this is only my work and not who I am in person.”
“They know that it was my job as an actor and I will play all kinds of parts in the future, too.”
Currently, Bozan has no upcoming projects lined up, but his new recognition is likely to open up roles available to him.
“I'm in talks about some films and some series that are coming in the future and there will be shooting this year and next year, but there is nothing official right now.
“But I will absolutely keep working since I'm a professional actor and I have been educated and working as an actor in theaters for like the last past 10 years. So, definitely, I will do more jobs in the future. And there are big things coming for me in 2021.
The most immediate question for the many viewers of the popular show is whether or not there will be a second season of Caliphate.
He shared that he has heard that Netflix and the series’ creators have had talks about continuing the show.
“But I really don't know if there will be a second season or not,” he concluded. “I know many fans and people hope for a new season since it’s a great series. So, let's see what will happen.”
Editing by John J. Catherine