The critically acclaimed novel Stolen, written by Ann-Helen Laestadius, is being adapted into a film for Netflix.

Elle Márjá Eira (The Sámi Have Rights, Ealát) will be directing Stolen as her feature film debut and the renowned writer Peter Birro (Monica Z, 438 Days) will pen the script. 

The novel Stolen portrays a young woman’s struggle to defend her indigenous heritage in a world where xenophobia is on the rise, climate change is threatening reindeer herding, and young people choose suicide in the face of collective desperation. But the novel also lays bare the tensions that arise when modern ideas come up against a traditional culture with deeply rooted patriarchal structures.

The film is planned to have its global premiere in 2024 and filming is currently planned to begin in Sápmi in the spring of 2023.

Peter Birro (b. 1966) is one of Scandinavia’s most admired and prolific screenwriters. The three-time Prix Italia-winner’s groundbreaking TV-series Hammarkullen, Det nya landet, and How Soon Is Now?! are sweeping visions of Swedish society, marginalized people, political dramas and deeply human, emotional stories.

For cinema Birro has written the hugely successful biopic Monica Z about the internationally acclaimed jazz singer Monica Zetterlund, one of Sweden’s most talented and tragic artists. Monica Z became the biggest commercial success of 2013 in Swedish theaters and went on to be nominated for several awards, including a ‘Grand Prix des Amériques’ at the Montréal World Film Festival and no less than 11 Guldbagge Awards, of which it won four.

Birro’s most recent feature title is an adaptation of the nonfiction title 438 Days. The dramatic story of the kidnapping of two Swedish journalists in 2011 in Ethiopia premiered in 2019 and was promptly nominated for six Guldbagge Awards.