Swedish

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In Roy Andersson’s film work, the ambition is to come as close to the truth as possible. In some instances this objective has put Andersson in a difficult position with those who commission works from him. One example is the film Something Happened – an information film about AIDS, commissioned by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare – on which he began work in 1986. When Andersson in 1987 had three-fourths of the film completed, the Board forced him to stop production. The official explanation was that the film was too dark in its message, and it went unseen by the public for a number of years.Read More »

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Mother, father and sister visit the adult son in the family in his small apartment for a dinner. The father gives one critical view after the other about his sons life.

Roy Anderssons school shorts has not got the same aesthetics as his most well-known works; “You, the Living”, “World of Glory” and “Songs from the Second Floor”. But it is easy to compare them to his other early works, such as “A Swedish Love Story” and “Giliap”. This is the first of major three school films Roy Andersson made. All released recently by Scanbox and SFI in a dvd collection containing the best known Andersson shorts.Read More »

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Roy Andersson premiered his second feature-length film, “Giliap”, in 1975. The film is a marked departure from “A Swedish Love Story”, and that is no accident. Success brought pressure onto Andersson to make “A Swedish Love Story II”. But he didn’t want to be someone who churned out yet another film in the same spirit, and then one more… So he changed style drastically in “Giliap”. Andersson had great hopes for the film, but it found neither a public nor positive reviews. “Giliap” did, however, win a larger reception abroad, especially in France. Yet despite its meagre successes in Sweden, the film is interesting, not least aesthetically. For here one finds the first seeds of Andersson’s distinctive film style.
In “Giliap”, actor Thommy Berggren plays a wandering day-labourer who takes employment at the fading Hotel Busarewski. The hotel is run by a wheelchair-bound misanthrope who harshly deals out orders to his staff as he reminisces about Busarewski’s former golden days.Read More »

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My Life as a Dog (Mitt liv som hund) tells the story of Ingemar, a twelve-year-old from a working-class family sent to live with his uncle in a country village when his mother falls ill. There, with the help of the warmhearted eccentrics who populate the town, the boy finds both refuge from his misfortunes and unexpected adventure. Featuring an incredibly mature and unaffected performance by the young Anton Glanzelius, this film is a beloved and bittersweet evocation of the struggles and joys of childhood from Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallström.Read More »

The Image Makers (Swedish original title: Bildmakarna) is a 2000 Swedish TV drama directed by Ingmar Bergman and written by Per Olov Enquist.The play was originally written for and staged by the Royal Dramatic Theatre (featuring the same cast), where it premiered on Feb 13, 1998 (directed by Bergman). Following the success of the stage production, it was adapted for Swedish television (SVT) in 2000 with Bergman as a director.The Image Makers portrays an odd meeting of four great Swedish artists: author Selma Lagerlöf, actress Tora Teje, film director Victor Sjöström and film photographer Julius Jaenzon. The drama is set in the year 1920 at Swedish Filmstudios where the great silent film director Victor Sjöström is shooting the silent film The Phantom Carriage, an adaptation of Lagerlöf’s popular novel Körkarlen. He has now invited the book’s grand authoress to take a first look at some early scenes…Read More »

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Legendary director Ingmar Bergman rarely gives interviews, but in 1999 he made an exception for journalist Malou von Sivers of TV4 International Sweden. Together with his best friend and frequent collaborator, the renowned Swedish actor Erland Josephson, Bergman discusses life, death, and love in this charged and highly candid interview.Read More »

Story of a gang of young people who live in one of the concrete ghettos outside Stockholm. They commit a series of murders of those they feel responsible for their situation. This one is often described as a cheap Swedish Clockwork Orange spin-off.Read More »

Description: “Face to Face was intended to be a film about dreams and reality. The dreams were to become tangible reality. Reality would dissolve and become dream. I have occasionally managed to move unhindered between dream and reality, in Persona, Sawdust and Tinsel and Cries and Whispers. This time it was more difficult. My intentions required an inspiration which failed me. The dream sequences became synthetic, the reality blurred. There are a few solid scenes here and there, and Liv Ullmann struggled like a lion, but not even she could save the culmination, the primal scream which amounted to enthusiastic but ill-digested fruit of my reading. Artistic license sneered through the thin fabric.”
— Ingmar Bergman, The Magic LanternRead More »

Vilgot Sjöman (I Am Curious — Yellow 1967) and a crew from Swedish Television followed Ingmar Bergman during the filming of Winter Light and came away with a five-part documentary, including set construction, rehearsals, editing, and behind-the-camera conversations with Bergman and the cast and crew, and audience reactions to the film. Written by BubbleofearthRead More »