Guth Gafa Documentary Festival 2008

Paradise
Sweden, 2007, 58 min
Director: Jerzy Sladkowski

Fri 16th • Óstán Loch Altan • 1:45pm
Sat 17th • Óstán Loch Altan • 2:30pm

‘A marriage that survives wallpapering can survive anything’ says a northern Swedish proverb. Hans and Kerstin Stralström, who are both eighty-three years old, put their 60-year long marriage on the rocks when they set out to wallpaper their cottage together in Pojkjärvi, outside Kiruna, in the north of Sweden.
You could call this a romantic ‘documentary-comedy’ with sentimental elements, because, despite the Stralströms' loss of strength, health and patience for each other, there is a lot of humour and love left. ‘If we both lose it’, they say, ‘then there is no point in going on living’. That is why they try to keep their love alive.