The Swedish film Hammarskjöld: Struggle for Peace, directed and written by Per Fly and starring Mikael Persbrandt, Francis Chouler, Cian Barry and Hakeem Kae-Kazim, among others, arrives today on cinema screens in Madrid.
With music by Raymond Enoksen and photography by John Christian Rosenlund, this biographical drama-thriller tells the story of how, in the Cold War of 1961, the diplomat and economist Dag Hammarskjöld boards a plane in a desperate attempt to negotiate a ceasefire with his enemies after leading UN troops in their first war operation.
Dag Hammarskjöld was a Swedish politician, economist and diplomat who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations from 7 April 1953 to 18 September 1961, when the plane he was on to mediate in the Katanga conflict in Zaire or Belgian Congo crashed. There are indications that Hammarskjöld’s plane did not crash but was shot down, but the true cause of the accident is still unknown. Weeks later, the diplomat and international civil servant was posthumously awarded the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize.
