PROGRAMME
On
the occasion of the 68th FIAF Congress in Beijing, the Norwegian Film
Institute and the National Library of Norway are pleased to offer the
delegates a copy of the restored Norwegian 1926 silent Brudeferden i
Hardanger / The Bridal Party in Hardanger, with subtitles in Chinese
and English
Veteran Norwegian film director, scriptwriter and producer Rasmus Breistein
was inspired by Norway’s most iconic painting from the national
romantic era (by Adolf Tiedemand and Hans Gude, 1848) as the title for
his 1926 silent movie The Bridal Party in Hardanger, set in pre-industrial,
rural Norway. Based on the novella “Marit Skjølte”
by Kristofer Janson (1868), the film is an epic story of love, deceit
and class differences.
Breistein’s film makes the most of the dramatic and magnificent
fjord and mountain landscapes of western Norway. The film was a large
and spectacular project, and as the main character Marit, actress Aase
Bye made her break-through in cinema.
The present version is the result of six years of restoration work by
the Norwegian Film Institute. Music curator at the Lillehammer University
College Halldor Krogh restored the original score from surviving cue-sheets,
based on works by – among others – Norwegian composer Edvard
Grieg, and it is performed by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.