Hemsöborna is a 1966 Swedish drama television series directed by Bengt Lagerkvist, starring Sif Ruud, Allan Edwall and Sven Wollter. It follows the social dynamics when a widow hires a man to run her farm on an island in the Stockholm Archipelago. It is based on the 1887 novel The People of Hemsö by August Strindberg. Produced by Sveriges Television (SVT), it was the most expensive Swedish television production of all time when it was made.
SVT first broadcast Hemsöborna in 7 episodes of 30 minutes each from 19 February to 2 April 1966. A version edited into two episodes was broadcast in 1967 and a version with 3 60-minute episodes was broadcast multiple times from 1971 to 1999. The series was released on DVD in 2004.
The series was a great success both with critics and viewers, with viewership in the millions. It was a major breakthrough for Wollter. Lagerkvist went on to direct other high-profile television adaptations of Swedish literary classics, notably Strindberg's The Red Room in 1970, where he reunited with Hemsöborna's screenwriter Herbert Grevenius and cinematographer Bertil Wiktorsson.
Cast
Sif Ruud as madam Flod
Allan Edwall as Carlsson
Sven Wollter as Gusten
Hilding Gavle as Rundqvist
Håkan Serner as Norman
Julia Cæsar as the priest's maid
Edvin Adolphson as Erik Nordström, the priest
Ulf Palme as narrator