Trollhättan

Trollhättan's falls are caged for hydropower most of the year, but on scheduled release days the dam opens and ten thousand cubic metres per second pour over the rock face in a thirty-two-metre cascade. The spray rises above the treeline. The canal lock system beside the falls still raises and lowers boats, patient and mechanical, as if the waterfall next door were someone else's business.

Trollhättan sits on the Göta älv river in Västra Götaland, forty-five minutes north of Gothenburg. The Trollhättan Falls were harnessed for hydropower in the early twentieth century, but scheduled water releases — Fallens Dagar — restore the cascade to its natural force during summer weekends. The canal lock system, constructed in stages from the 1800s, allows boats to bypass the falls on the river route between Gothenburg and Lake Vänern. Film i Väst, Sweden's largest film production centre, operates here — over a hundred feature films and series have been produced in what locals call Trollywood.