''Traffik'' is a 1989 British television serial about an
illegal drug trade
The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs throug ...
. Its three stories are interwoven, with arcs told from the perspectives of
Afghan
Afghan may refer to:
*Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia
*Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity
**Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pash ...
and
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
BAFTA Award
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cer ...
s, winning three. It also won an
International Emmy Award
The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...
for best drama. The 2000 crime drama film ''
Traffic
Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation.
Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...
'', directed by
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh (; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. A pioneer of modern independent cinema, Soderbergh is an acclaimed and prolific filmmaker.
Soderbergh's direct ...
, was based on the miniseries. In turn, the 2004 American television miniseries ''
Traffic
Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation.
Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...
'' was based on both versions.
Background
The six-part serial was produced by Britain's
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
Alastair Reid
Alastair Reid (22 March 1926, in Whithorn – 21 September 2014, in Manhattan) was a Scottish poet and a scholar of South American literature. He was known for his lighthearted style of poems and for his translations of South American poets Jo ...
* Bill Paterson as Jack Lithgow, a Scottish Home Office minister engaged in combating heroin importation from Pakistan.
*
Julia Ormond
Julia Karin Ormond (born 4 January 1965) is an English actress. She rose to prominence by appearing in ''The Baby of Mâcon'' (1993), ''Legends of the Fall'' (1994), '' First Knight'' (1995), '' Sabrina'' (1995), ''Smilla's Sense of Snow'' (199 ...
as his drug addicted daughter Caroline.
*
Juraj Kukura
Juraj Kukura (born 15 March 1947, in Prešov) is a Slovak actor.
Kukura studied acting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (VŠMU). Since 1985, when he emigrated to West Germany, his films were banned in the Czechoslovak Socialist ...
as Karl Rosshalde, a German drug smuggler.
*
Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Vere Duncan (born 7 November 1950) is a Scottish actress. On stage, she has won two Olivier Awards (for ''Les Liaisons Dangereuses'' and ''Private Lives'') and a Tony Award (for ''Private Lives''). She has starred in several plays by Ha ...
as Rosshalde's English wife Helen.
*Fritz Müller-Scherz and
Tilo Prückner
Tilo Prückner (26 October 1940 – 2 July 2020Jamal Shah as Pakistani
opium poppy
''Papaver somniferum'', commonly known as the opium poppy or breadseed poppy, is a species of flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae. It is the species of plant from which both opium and poppy seeds are derived and is also a valuable ornam ...
grower Fazal, who is evicted from his land as a result of policies encouraged by the British government.
* Talat Hussain as Pakistani drug lord Tariq Butt, the supplier of Rosshalde's European heroin network.
*
Faryal Gohar
Faryal Gohar is a Pakistan actress, television writer and human rights activist. She is known for her roles in dramas '' Waris'', ''Uraan'', '' Chaandni Raatain'', ''Chand Grehan'', ''Wisal'' and '' Mohini Mansion Ki Cinderellayain''.
Early life ...
as Roomana, daughter of the Pakistani magistrate; she later shows Lithgow the extent of the deception Tariq Butt has foisted upon customs officials.
* Ismat Shahjahan as Sabira, Fazal's wife.
Episode list
Reception
The miniseries currently has an average rating of 83% on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
. Writer Suan C. Boyd acknowledges the miniseries for giving different perspectives of the global war on drug trade, going as far as to claim that ''Traffik'' is the ''only'' film sample that includes the poppy grower in depth.
Home media
The miniseries was released on DVD on 26 June 2001 by Acorn Media.