Journey to Seacrow Island
Writer Karin Arrhenius and director Fredrik Edfeldt reflect on the task of reimagining Astrid Lindgren’s beloved Swedish family series Vi på Saltkråkan (Life on Seacrow Island) for modern audiences, their screen partnership and why good drama comes from good characters.
Between them, Karin Arrhenius and Fredrik Edfeldt have worked on a number of notable Nordic dramas, from Blackwater and Greyzone to Blue Eyes and Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders.
But their latest collaboration sees them partner on a family show that reimagines a classic Swedish series for modern audiences.
Astrid Lindgren’s Vi på Saltkråkan (Life on Seacrow Island) first aired in 1964, telling the story of a family from Stockholm who spend their summers on Seacrow Island. Lindgren, the author of children’s books including those featuring Pippi Longstocking, later re-wrote the series as a novel, while a film version was released in 1968.
Now, six decades later, writer Arrhenius and director Edfeldt have teamed up for a six-part series of the same name, produced by SF Studios for Swedish broadcaster SVT and with Beta Film handling international distribution. A story about the children of two different families, one from Stockholm’s rural archipelago and another from the bustling city, it sees their lives intertwined on the island during one long and memorable summer.
The ensemble cast includes Henrik Norlén (Tsunami), Karin de Frumerie (Tsunami), Göran Gillinger (First Responders), Philip Zandén (438 days), Nora Rios (Caliphate) and Anna Bjelkerud (The Giant), with the children played by Vega Åhman, Elton Larsson, Lovisa Lindblad, Lisa Varger, Ingrid Andersson Curman, Sami Fagerström Erfan and Bertil Mancini.
“I’m a great Astrid Lindgren fan. We grew up with the TV serial and the film, so when I got the question [to remake the series], it was like, ‘Wow, this gonna be fun,’” Edfeldt tells DQ. “But also, the next thing is, ‘Oh, this will be very difficult,’ because it’s such a beloved story. “It was nice to have this passion or love for the original in the background when you work. But then we had to forget about that and just try to do our own version.”
“I remember when I got the question. It’s like, ‘My God, they asked me to do this,’ and it’s a question that you cannot say no to. You have to say yes,” says Arrhenius. “Then you have this great big fear. But it’s just impossible not to go with it, no matter how hard it could be.”
This new version of Seacrow Island isn’t a remake, however, with fewer than half the episodes of the 13-part original. Instead, the creatives chose to lean on the spirit of Lindgren’s work and create new stories for the families at the heart of the series.
“We’re in the same place, and we’re with these families and these funny people on an island during a long summer,” Arrhenius continues. “What happens there will connect very well with the original story.”
“Karin and I just talked about the challenge to create entertaining drama without so much drama, if you see what I mean,” Edfeldt says. “We don’t have any action or violence.”
But seen through the eyes of its child characters, storylines such as a beloved family pet dying still have the ability to pack a big punch.
“We don’t really go into so much screen time with the grown-ups, and we don’t look at the parents and the problems they have or might have in their relationship or whatever,” Arrhenius notes. “There is a big no-no to romance, violence, sex and alcohol. We don’t touch those subjects at all.”
Despite working on numerous darker, adult-themed dramas, Edfeldt and Arrhenius do have experience working together on similar child-led projects, such as feature film Flickan, the story of a young girl left alone in Sweden while her family spends a summer in Africa.
Asked by the producers to reunite for Seacrow Island, they presented a pitch focusing on characters, rather than specific plotlines.
“I talked so very much about characters,” Arrhenius remembers, “because good drama is about characters. If you have good characters, that is how you create good drama. I remember talking a lot about the characters and that is one of the keys to it.
“It’s not going to be a very modern, super-structured drama. It starts with the feeling of the characters and uses nature, the animals, the summer, the island and the weather to then just be a bit free and crazy and let things just happen.”
The series does also feature a closed-ended story in each episode, along with a serialised element that runs across all six parts. Arrhenius also had the task of giving each character their own moment in each episode, “which is always the challenge,” she says. “That was hard, to give everyone a little space in each episode. But I think we did it.”
“I remember a discussion about restricting the numbers of characters,” Edfeldt says. “But I was like, ‘No, the more the merrier,’ because we wanted to create this big group of people that create the feel-good atmosphere we wanted.”
Humour is also a big part of the show, from the various pranks the children play to their general bemusement at the adults. “We wanted a lot of jokes in the show,” says the director, who shot everything on location in the Stockholm archipelago, with several islands making up the fictional Seacrow, meaning numerous boat trips were needed to ferry cast, crew and equipment between locations. “So that was already something really rewarding in the material. It was really fantastic shoot, but maybe a big headache for the production office with all these boats.”
“I remember I went to visit the shoot when we were out at the lighthouse, to an island with no electricity, no water, a lot of snakes, no food, nothing. It was just dogs,” Arrhenius says. “You could have made a film about that, but it was good.”
Edfeldt filmed the series with lots of wide angles to capture as much of the scenery as possible, and to also see the characters interacting with the locations. “But we also had a very philosophical discussion about how wide you can go with the picture before it becomes too big,” he says. “We tried to find the distance between the characters and the camera, and that’s adjusted to the children’s perspective. It’s not a super-subjective perspective, but very easy to read. I would say it’s very visual, and the DOP did some fantastic work.”
Working with a young cast of seven children aged between six and 13 – plus a two-year-old – meant life on set was never quiet. But that was exactly the way Edfeldt wanted it.
“The saying is that you should never shoot with animals or children, but as a director, you try to create some Illusion of life and when you have children and animals, you get so much for free because they are not restricted, so you can get a lot of good energy into the material,” he remarks.
Filmed last summer, the series is set to launch on SVT on October 31. “For a primetime show, we got a lot of space to create what we wanted. I think it’s really close to the vision we had,” Edfeldt says.
Meanwhile, Arrhenius says it has been a “privilege and such an honour” to work on the series. “It’s just the finest thing that anyone could ask you to do,” she says. “It’s almost emotional.”
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tagged in: Astrid Lindgren, Fredrik Edfeldt, Karin Arrhenius, Life on Seacrow Island, SF Studios, SVT, Sweden, Vi på Saltkråkan