Volvo equipment cuts ice screen for Swedish film festival
Wheel loaders from Eskilstuna, Sweden-based Volvo have been used to harvest the ice for the construction of a giant movie screen made entirely of ice, which was installed at the Stockholm International Film Festival, scheduled for Nov. 18-29. It will be the first time a feature film is shown on an ice screen.
Weighing around 11 tons, the screen will be crafted from ultra-clear ice harvested in slabs from the frozen Torne River in northernmost Sweden, near the Arctic Circle. The ice for the screen was carved from the river in March, when the temperature was minus 11.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
A team from Sweden’s Ice Hotel is building the screen. An L70 and an L50 wheel loader were used to harvest the ice for the 16.4-foot-wide and 9.8-foot-high screen, which will be set up in an undisclosed location in central Stockholm. A Volvo wheel loader is expected to hoist the screen on to a podium for outdoor film buffs to watch two feature films. The screen then will be removed after two days of film screenings — before it starts to melt.
Ice Hotel creative director Arne Bergh said about 5,500 tons of ice was harvested to create the screen and to build next year’s Ice Hotel. “The harvesting involves attaching a large chainsaw with a hydraulic engine to the tractors so that they can carve the ice,” Bergh said. “Then the tractors drive the ice to our storage facility on the shore of the Torne River, which is kept at a constant temperature of 23 degrees Fahrenheit.”