Though Ingeborg Holm is Sjöström's sixth film, it is his earliest surviving work. But the importance of this film goes far beyond its chronological positioning, for it is considered to be Sweden's first film of major importance and an unusual instance of social outrage brought to bear in an emerging medium. Peter Cowie observes: "Ingeborg Holm may have been based on a play, but the immediacy of its social bite can be gauged from the torrent of controversy in the press right after its premiere. Sjöström has no sympathy with the Poor Law system prevailing in Sweden at the time, whereby children were auctioned to speculators in forced labor." The original play, written by Nils Krook, administrator of the poor-relief program in Helsingborg, enjoyed fervent acceptance throughout Sweden. But Sjöström's treatment offers a more realistic atmosphere that makes the social reality tangible and vivid. A widow, Ingeborg Holm, is lodged in the Poor House and becomes distraught when her children are torn from her, one by one. She learns that her daughter is ill, and escapes from the police in a last attempt to reach the girl. But she is found and brought back to the hospice. In despair, she succumbs to madness, until her wayfaring son returns. Much of the film's potency comes from Hilda Borgström's restrained interpretation of the unhinged widow. She subdues the pathetic potential of the role, deftly sketching the slow and painful decline of this distressed mother. White-haired and old for her years, Ingeborg Holm caresses a swaddled piece of wood as though it were her lost child. The social tableaux shot in pitiless grey lighting adds further force to the film's indignation.