SWE 1923 | Director: Per Lindberg | Script: Hjalmar Bergman | Camera: Ragnar Westfelt | Cast: Tora Teje, Linnéa Hillberg, Inga Tidblad, Egil Eide, Renée Björling | Production: Bonnierfilm | b/w | DCP | 86 min | silent with live accompaniment of music | swedish INT with english SUB | Swedish Film Institute
Blasé men, condescending family members, and especially, pushy bosses: Men and Other Misfortunes (the apt English title of the novel on which this film is based) determine the lives of young office workers Pegg (played with fine irony by Tora Teje), Baby, Eva and Emmy, in Per Lindberg's occasionally comedic NORRTULLSLIGAN. The rigours of long days spent typing at small desks without a break are followed by convivial evenings in the shared flat, where they dance, laugh, dream, and eat exuberantly. The four women can rely on each other and the office secretaries who finally go on strike. The film is based on the emancipatory novel by Swedish writer and pioneer of the women's movement, Elin Matilda Elisabet Wägner (1882-1949), who sharply criticised Lindberg's decision to align the end of the film with the social norms of the time. (Milena Gregor, Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art, 2022)
Maud Nelissen on the music for NORRTULLSLIGAN
„[...] the music for this film needs to be warm, intimate, lyrical, subtle, and at some points humoristic. There is no big drama happening, if the film shows its intimacy, warmth and humanity even more, and opens up ‘hidden’ corners, helped by my music, I will be satisfied
as a composer.
The Dutch composer/pianist Harry Bannink and the Dutch accordionist Harry Mooten, who played together numerous times for Bannink’s compositions have been of great importance for certain elements in my music. Bannink’s music is for me ‘the’ equivalent for warmth and humanity in music [...]
The music now will be composed for Accordion, Piano and Soprano/Alto saxophone.“
| Acronyms | |
|---|---|
| amer. | American English |
| b/w | Black and white |
| OV | Original version |
| SUB | Subtitles |
| +SUB | electronic live subtitling (below the image) |
| INT | Intertitles |
| Countries | |
|---|---|
| AT | Austria |
| FRG | Federal Republic of Germany (historic) |
| BLR | Belarus |
| DE | Germany |
| CAN | Canada |
| GDR | German Democratic Republic (historic) |
| EGY | Egypt |
| FR | France |
| GB | Great Britain |
| URY | Uruguay |
| BRA | Brasil |
| SWE | Sweden |
| UKR | Ukraine |
| PL | Poland |
| IDN | Indonesia |
| PRT | Portugal |
| HRV | Croatia |
| ECU | Ecuador |
| HUN | Hungary |
| AUS | Australia |
| IT | Italy |
| MEX | Mexico |
| IND | India |
The musicians
Daphne Balvers: Soprano and Alto saxophone
Renée Bekkers: Accordion
Maud Nelissen
Balvers studied saxophone at the Amsterdam Academy of Music . She is a member of the Amsterdam Saxophone Quartet and has worked in that city with internationally renowned musicians. She is also a member of Maud Nelissen's film music orchestra The Sprockets and teaches saxophone at the music school in Amersfoort.
Bekkers studied classical accordion at the Fontys Academy of Music (Netherlands) and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. In search of new possibilities for expression and sound, she ventured out of the classical music world. She played in various chamber music groups and released several CD recordings. Today she teaches at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts Tilburg and is executive director of De Link, an organisation for contemporary music.
Nelissen is a Dutch composer and pianist with a special interest in music for silent film. She worked in Italy with Charlie Chaplin's last music arranger, Eric James. She is now a much sought-after silent film pianist and composer at festivals in Europe, the USA and Asia.
Maud established her own silent film music ensemble, The Sprockets, and has performed with them as well as other ensembles at home and abroad. Maud Nelissen has collaborated with Kinothek Asta Nielsen many times in the past; for Remake 2021 and 2019 she composed the music for SHOES (1916, Lois Weber) and HINDLE WAKES (1927, Maurice Elvey). The composition for NORRTULLSLIGAN was also commissioned by the Kinothek.
Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi is the Curator of Silent film at Eye Filmmuseum. Born in Istanbul, graduated from the Univ. of Amsterdam Film & TV Studies in 1997, she is employed at the Eye Filmmuseum since 1999. Next to being responsible for the internationally renowned Desmet Collection, she has worked on the discovery, restoration and presentation of many presumed lost films, with a particular focus on the oeuvre of forgotten actresses such as Rosa Porten, Sarah Duhamel, Tsuru Aoki, and many other unnamed comediennes. Elif served two terms as an executive committee member of the Women and Film History International and co-organized the Women and the Silent Screen 2019 Conference at Eye. She is also one of the curators of Early Cinema’s Nasty Women; a DVD box set featuring 99 silent films, released in December 2022.
Kajsa Hedström is Project Manager at the Archival Film Collections, Svenska Filminstitutet. Before responsible for the Bergman centennial 2018, Curator of Filmarkivet.se, and in the editorial committee for digitization and Nordic Women in Film. Kajsa Hedström has had several positions within the Swedish film industry: Head of Acquisitions at arthouse distributor Folkets Bio, VP Int'l Distribution, AB Svensk Filmindustri and Head of Cinemateket, Svenska Filminstitutet.
