“Nielegalni” (Illegals) – series (2018)

Work

The series was directed by Leszek Dawid and Jan P. Matuszyński and produced by Telemark for Canal+. The lead role, Polish intelligence officer Konrad Wolski, is played by Grzegorz Damięcki. The action takes place in locations including Warsaw, Istanbul, Stockholm and Minsk.^1,3,4

The novels’ publisher states that Studio Canal made a ten-episode series based on the cycle, whose cast includes Andrzej Seweryn and Grzegorz Damięcki.²

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAfter two episodes, Spider’s Web’s reviewer described the series as a blend of spy thriller and drama, focused on the characters’ psychology and the personal cost of the work; she warned that its many parallel threads could lose an inattentive viewer.⁵

The real background

The series inherits the novels’ setting: Polish intelligence, Russian and Belarusian services, and the figure of an illegal living for years in Sweden under an assumed identity (see the card for the novel and the entry illegal).²

The author of the books served in communist-era Polish intelligence, the UOP and the Foreign Intelligence Agency until 2007. The sources we have used do not say whether or how he took part in work on the series, so we do not attribute individual scenes to him.^1,6

What matches and what was changed

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccording to Spider’s Web, the screenplay adapted the novels freely rather than transferring them one to one.³

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesThe names of the main characters – Konrad Wolski, Sara Korska, Hans Jorgensen – come from the books; the series also features the character of Travis (Oleg Zubov), who in the novel is a Polish illegal inside the Belarusian KGB.^2,5

We have found no study comparing the series with the realities of intelligence work; reviews assess it as a work of screen drama, not as testimony.⁵

What remains unclear

According to Spider’s Web, subscribers with a Canal+ package received the first three episodes on Saturday 20 October 2018, and on 21 October at 21:30 the first two were shown unencrypted on Canal+. A Samsung press release of 4 October 2018 announced broadcasts on Sundays from 27 October.^3,4,7

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesIn October 2018 Canal+ also bought the screen rights to the novel “Zamęt” (Turmoil); we have found no information that this adaptation was made.⁸