Adalen 31

Sweden, 1931. Workers at the sawmills in the Ådalen district go on strike. The strike drags on, the employers bring in strikebreakers, and the tension builds. On 14 May thousands of workers hold a peaceful march. Soldiers sent into the district by the government open fire on the crowd; five people are killed, among them a young woman who was simply passing. The film tells it through one family, and there is also a relationship between Kjell, a sawmill worker's son, and the manager's daughter. Bo Widerberg directs; a hundred and fourteen minutes. It won the grand prize of the jury at Cannes in 1969. Widerberg spends his time not on the violence but on the summer heat and the daily life before it, which is why the event lands as hard as it does.