Aliette Opheim To Star In The Emigrants Remake

Aftonbladet reports that Aliette Opheim (Thicker Than Water) will star as Kristina in Daniel Espinosa’s adaptation of The Emigrants (Utvandrarna), based on the best-selling books by Vilhelm Moberg about Swedish migration to the United States in the 1840s.

In the mid 19th century, young farming couple Kristina and Karl-Oskar suffer through famine and the death of their first-born child before deciding to emigrate to the USA. What follows is a difficult ten-week voyage across the Atlantic, before they can begin their inland journey to a new life in Minnesota.

The story was last adapted by Jan Troell in 1971, starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman, and was followed in 1972 by The New Land (Nybyggarna) in which the couple find themselves tested by extreme weather, the Civil War and a bloody uprising by the indigenous Sioux Indians.

The Emigrants begins filming later this year and, if well received, the remaining instalments may follow.