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Northern Sweden. Bitter Cold. Massive walls of snow surround maximum security Vidsel Air Base. Flaming afterburners light up the pale sky. Giant, grey metal birds stand out against the ice blue horizon. The stillness of the unforgiving, winter landscape broken by the thunder of Gripen planes taking off. Welcome to the leading edge of air force technology located north of the Arctic Circle, on the border between modern civilization and the more traditional, nomadic way of life led by the Sami and reindeer. The impressive display is merely the calm before the storm. It is here the final testing of the Gripen and its highly coveted and extremely advanced weapons software, an advantage that translates into hard currency in the international struggle for power, is to take place. It is this very advantage that comes under threat when powerful forces from the outside put into motion a plot to eliminate Sweden’s technological edge. A ruthless enemy not averse to using terrorist tactics against innocent civilians threatens computer expert Lars Brudell and his beloved wife, Inger and son, Niklas. Lars Brudell is trained to make split second decisions – decisions that can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. Nothing could prepare him, however, for the decisions he now has to make. Kidnapped under threat, and bargaining for his life, Lars is given the impossible ultimatum: Betray your country and its military supremacy, or lose your family. With its military setting, THE THREAT is a spy thriller and a boyhood dream come true for its director: ”Sweden is one of only five countries in the world that actually builds fighter planes,” says Kjell Sundvall. ”It’s a billion dollar industry where the competition is enormous.” David Lowell, flown in specially from L.A., is the man behind the flight sequences here, as in films like BEHIND ENEMY LINES and PEARL HARBOR. ”He came because it meant he could go home and say that he’d flown and filmed Sweden’s Gripen fighter plane. There’s nobody else in the world who’s filmed that aircraft,” Sundvall reveals. (source: www.sfi.se)