Perilous Passage
A Return Journey
A film by
Thom Britten-Austin & Bernt Johansson
The fateful drama, the suggestive narrator's voice, the music and the special 3D graphics that the film brings to life the issues surrounding the disaster are impressive! The actors with their different profiles make the characters feel real. Although the tragic event as such is known to many, there are certainly at least as many as the film with excitement gets knowledge gaps filled.
Ansgar Lindbom
The association Grenna Kulturgård
the story so far
The steamship s/s Per Brahe went to the bottom in 1918 taking with her 24 passengers and crew in what many called the 'storm of the century'.
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This disaster occurred against the backdrop of the end of WW1 and a political and domestic upheaval in Sweden. The government of the day had other things to think about than the loss of a passenger ferry, however tragic it may have been.
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By 1922 the authorities and owners of the vessel had condemned the victims of the disaster to a watery grave.
Not so the inhabitants of the tiny harbour town of Hästholmen just a few hundred yards from where the ship went down. For them every new day was a reminder of the fate of the 24 souls left onboard.
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Something had to be done to raise the vessel and recover the mortal remains of the victims and bury them in hallowed ground.
Hästholmen 1932
Now old and failing, ex police commissioner Hjelm who presided over the court of enquiry into the loss of the Per Brahe, is plagued with guilt for his biased handling of the case where the guilty parties were exonerated leaving the relatives of the victims without compensation
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Knowing his days are numbered, Hjelm makes one last visit to the comunual grave where the victims were laid to rest after the ship was salvaged in 1922.
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There he encounters the young sexton whose only knowledge of the disaster in 1918 is second hand. Hjelm then confesses his guilt and the whole story is finally revealed.
the diver
Ernst Lagerström
The ship lay 35 meters down half-buried in mud, to all intents and purposes unreachable for a diver in 1922.
A few attempts had been made to access the ship but had failed. If there was ever to be a successful salvage it would require an exceptional effort by an extraordinary diver
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The story of the salvage of s/s Per Brahe is the story of one remarkable man, Karl Johann Ernst Lagerström. Against all odds he brought the ship back to the surface and collected what was left of the victims of the disaster in 1918.
the film
Filming began in 2021 and was completed by early summer 2022. The same team that created the prequal to this 2-part drama, worked intensly to complete the film in time for the 100 year memorial for the salvage of the s/s Per Brahe which was held in Hästholmen on the 24th July 2022.
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This 2-part dramatised documentary will stand as the final testament to the tragedy which began on the night of the 19th November 1918 and concluded on the 8th August 1922
