Alda's Värld - Alda's World, a picture journey into the Sweden of old

THIS FILM IS IN SWEDISH - NOW WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES!
Scroll down for more information in English!

Filmen "Alda's Värld" tar oss in i målaren Alda Boströms värld. Hon föddes i slutet av 1930-talet i den lilla byn Risbäck i Anundsjö socken i norra Sverige, nära gränsen till Lappland. Landskapet består av djupa skogar sjöar och berg och den stora floden Anundsjösjön.
Hon var den yngsta av sju barn i en familj av bönder. Livet var präglad av hård arbete och den övermäktiga naturen, med stränga vintrar och farliga djur. Det gamla förindustriella livet var fortfarande närvarande med all dess glädje och fasor.
Alda tar oss på en resa genom tiden, från århundraden långt före sin egen födelse till 1960-talet, när, som hon säger, livet förändrades genom den moderna tekniken och det gamla levnadssättet började blekna.
Hon skildrar sin egen barndom, det dagliga livet i byn och på fäbodarna, hur man dansade i logen på sommaren och träffades på missionsmöte, hur hård det kunde vara att klara sig genom vintrarna, fattigdom, utvandring, konflikter med farliga djur. Och det övernaturliga har sin plats: vi möter vittra på fäbodarna och i byn!
Några av de berättelser hon skildrar i ord och bild tillhör den orala traditionen i hennes hemby, andra hittade hon genom flitig forskning i gamla dokument, tidningar och kyrkböcker.
Vi får ta del i ett Sverige som tillhör det förflutna - men inte allt av sin magi har försvunnit helt!

Tavlor av Alda Boström
Musik av Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski utförd av Russian Globalis Orchestra dirigerad av Konstantin Krimetz.
ENGLISH:

The film takes us into the world of the Swedish painter and gifted storyteller Alda Boström. She was born in the late 1930s in the small village Risbäck in Anundsjö parish in northern Sweden near the border with Lapland.
She was the youngest of seven children in a family of farmers, her father worked also as a lumberjack. Life was characterized by hard work and the overwhelming nature, with severe winters and dangerous animals.

The cultivation of crops on the cleared areas was only possible in a short period during the year. The agricultural year begun in May and ended in October. Sowing, weeding and harvesting had to happen in this time.It was most important to have enough fodder supplies for the cattle in winter. Winter forage was harvested at the banks of brooks and rivers, lake-shores, forest edges and wet meadows while the valuable fields near the villages were used for the cultivation of crops.
Far away from farm and village, mostly young girls and women spent a large part of the summer watching over the cattle, milking the cows and producing butter and cheese. The women lived in small wooden houses, the so-called fäbodar, and spent most of their time outdoors.
Time after time, strange apparitions were reported. Especially in the North of Sweden, beings called Vittra inhabit the stories and tales. Usually described as white-clad figures they are a people living below ground, existing parallel to the human sphere, following their own rules and laws. It can come to conflicts when humans erect a house or a stall over a Vittra-dwelling.
They keep cattle and cultivate their underground fields, just like their human neighbors.
The Free Church movement that organized mission meetings was an important factor in the social life in Sweden in the first half of the twentieth century.
Even today many of the prayer houses still stand, but not all of them still serve their native purpose.

A main industry were the paper mills, trees felled in the forests were floated on brooks and rivers to collection points. Often the logs got caught up in whirls and rapids.
The floaters went over the logs drifting in the water with long poles with a hook on the tip to direct the trees in the right direction. Risky operations were often necessary to free caught timber. Floater was a dangerous occupation.
The river Moälven, which shapes the character of the landscape here, was the main way of transportation for the timber logs to the harbors at the Baltic Sea.

Alda takes us on a journey through time, from the centuries long before her own birth to the 1960s, when, as she says, life changed through modern technology and the old way of life began to fade. She describes her own childhood, the daily life in the village and on the summer hill farms, how people danced in the barn on summer evenings, mission meetings, how hard it could be to get through the long winters, poverty, emigration, conflicts with dangerous animals. And the supernatural has its place: we meet Vittror (fairie-like creatures) on the hill farm and in the village!
Some of the stories she describes in words and pictures belong to the oral tradition in her home village, others she found through diligent research in old documents, newspapers and church books.

We get to take part in a Sweden that belongs to the past - but not all of its magic has disappeared completely!

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