Award-winning Danish director and actor Christian Tafdrup is set to direct Sagen mod Amagermanden (lit. “The Case Against the Amager Man/The Case Against the Copenhagen Killer”), a new true-crime drama series for Prime Video based on the case of murderer and rapist Marcel Lychau Hansen, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes committed between 1987 and 2010, according to the Danish trade publication Ekko.

The six-part series, with episodes running at approximately 45 minutes long, will dramatise the case of Hansen, who became known as the “Amager Man” because most of his crimes took place on Amager island in Copenhagen. The case began with the robbery and murder of a 73-year-old woman in 1987, followed by the rape and murder of a 40-year-old woman in 1990. Over the following years, Hansen was convicted of seven rapes, including a quadruple rape in 1995. DNA evidence from the scene of the final crime, committed in 2010, eventually led to his identification and arrest. Hansen consistently denied the charges during his trial, but was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2011.

The screenplay has been developed by Jens Dahl, Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen and Adrian Kirk Ejsing. Dahl’s credits include Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher films, as well as his own features 3 Things and Breeder. Dalsgaard Thomsen most recently contributed to Isabella Eklöf’s Kalak and also collaborated with Dahl on Breeder. The project was initially developed with Jonas Alexander Arnby (When Animals Dream) as director, before Tafdrup came on board to take over the film’s direction.

Tafdrup made his feature-length directorial debut with Parents, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. He followed it a year later with the controversial relationship drama A Terrible Woman, which he co-wrote with his brother, Mads Tafdrup, and which became a domestic box-office success. His international breakthrough came with the psychological thriller Speak No Evil, which premiered at Sundance and subsequently received an English-language remake starring James McAvoy. Tafdrup has also worked in television, including the series Couples Therapy, on which he has served as both director and creative contributor.

Sagen mod Amagermanden marks the first fictional dramatisation of the case, which has previously been explored in several documentaries and podcasts. No casting or release date has yet been announced, while details of how the series will approach the sensitive subject matter remain undisclosed.

The show is being produced by Christian Potalivo for Copenhagen-based Tall and Small and has received DKK 8 million (€1.1 million) in production support from the Danish Film Institute’s Public Service Fund.