Sweden

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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 »

From ingmarbergman.se

In 1951 there was a conflict in the Swedish film industry. The production companies had declared a ban on filming in protest against the high rate of tax on entertainment. Recently remarried, Ingmar Bergman, found himself with three families to support, and his contract with the Gothenburg City Theatre had expired. In order to earn any income whatsoever that year, he agreed to direct nine commercial for Bris soap on behalf of Swedish Unilever. It seems more than a coincidence that Sweden’s most famous film director should be the one to take the country’s advertising to a higher plane: the Bris films were the most lavishly funded that the country had ever seen.Read More »

Plot Summary :
The year’s Peace Games convene in Sweden, with a specially chosen Allied team set against a Soviet bloc squad composed entirely of Chinese Red Guards. Officers from both sides observe from a viewing room that displays the television feed relayed to the rest of the planet; the commanders can issue orders to their troops and make morale-building statements.

The Allied team’s effort immediately breaks down in nationalist and racist squabbling. Its officer tries to get his men to cooperate, but they show a lack of initiative, losing points and getting snarled up in a ruined factory building. In contrast, the Chinese team fights as an obedient unit. In the control booth, cool-headed technicians bemoan the fact that the ICARUS gaming computer doesn’t seem to be working very well.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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In the summer of 1984, my brother and his Greek wife came on a visit to my home on the island of Firo. He was then sixty-nine and a retired consul general. He had dutifully stayed in his post despite severe paralysis. By now he could move only his head, his breathing was jerky and his speech difficult to understand. We spent our days talking about our childhood.

He remembered much more than I did. He spoke of his hatred of Father and his strong ties to Mother. To him, they were still parents, mysterious creatures, capricious, incomprehensible and larger than life. We made our way along overgrown paths and stared at each other in astonishment, two elderly gentlemen, now at an insuperable distance from each other. Our mutual antipathy had gone, but had left space for emptiness; there was no contact, no affinity. My brother wanted to die, but was at the same time frightened of dying; a raging will to live keeping his lungs and heart going. He also pointed out that he had no chance of committing suicide because he could not move his hands.Read More »

She Monkeys is about the art of survival. We follow 15 year old Emma, her seven year old little sister Sara, and Emma’s newfound friend, Cassandra. Emma and Cassandra meet at the vaulting club. They initiate a relationship filled with physical and psychological challenges. Emma does whatever it takes to master the rules of the game. Lines are crossed and the stakes get higher and higher. Despite this, Emma can’t resist the intoxicating feeling of total control.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 »