Becoming Astrid
Becoming Astrid is a 2018 biographical drama film about the early life of Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. An international co-production between Sweden and Denmark, the film is directed by Pernille Fischer Christensen, from a screenplay co-written by Christensen and Kim Fupz Aakeson, and stars Alba August and Maria Fahl Vikander as young and elder incarnations of Lindgren, alongside Maria Bonnevie, Magnus Krepper, Trine Dyrholm, Henrik Rafaelsen and Björn Gustafsson.
The film premiered at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival on 21 February 2018, and was theatrically released in Sweden on 14 September of the same year, as well as in Denmark on 31 January 2019.
Plot
Children from all over the world write letters to Astrid Lindgren, which makes her dream back to her youth in Småland. When she worked at Vimmerby tidning, she falls in love with the chief editor, Reinhold Blomberg, who is 30 years her senior. She becomes pregnant with a son, Lars. As an unwed mother, she chooses to give birth to her son in Copenhagen, where she did not have to disclose the father's name.Her son spent his first years in a Danish foster family. At the Royal Automobile Club, Astrid met Sture Lindgren, who later came to be her husband.
Cast
- Alba August as Astrid Ericsson
- * Maria Fahl Vikander as Older Astrid
- Maria Bonnevie as Hanna Ericsson, Astrid's mother
- Magnus Krepper as Samuel August Ericsson, Astrid's father
- Henrik Rafaelsen as Reinhold Blomberg, editor-in-chief of Vimmerby magazine, and father of her son Lars
- Trine Dyrholm as Lars' Danish foster mother
- Björn Gustafsson as Sture Lindgren, Astrid's later husband
- Li Brådhe as Landlord
- Mira Mitchell as Berta
- Sofia Karemyr as Madicken
Production