02/07/2014 - The 11th Bergman Week on Fårø was rounded off by a stage production of Ingmar Bergman’s 1951 radio play The City

When US theatre company Demon Theater performed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s 1951 radio play The City on stage on Sunday (29 June), it concluded the 11^th Bergman Week on the island of Fårø – an annual homage looking at Bergman’s artistry from all angles.

Dance was also involved as one of this year’s themes: Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman presented a dance installation, based on Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (1973), in an old aircraft hangar in Bunge.

Another theme was his 1957 feature The Seventh Seal, which was the subject of lectures by Swedish film journalist and critic Göran Everdahl, and Vice-Chancellor/President of the University of Stockholm Astrid Söderbergh Widding.

Two new “Bergman films” were produced, when Swedish directors Baker Karim and Sofia Norlin shot scenes from Scenes from a Marriage, originally a TV mini-series, with Swedish actors Alexander Karim and Josette Bushell-Mingo/Philomène Grandin in the lead roles, in front of a live audience.

Swedish and international directors – including Bille August (Denmark), Catherine Breillat (France), Hisham Zaman (Norway), Richard Ayoade (UK), Mikael Marcimain and Lisa Langseth (Sweden) – discussed Bergman, showed their own latest films and named their Bergman favourites. 

In collaboration with the Göteborg International Film Festival, Bergman’s 1968 movie Shame was screened at the Roxy in Visby as part of the Almedalen Political Week’s “Film – A Political Eye-opener” programme, followed by a speech by Swedish author and radio producer Ola Anderstedt.

Lastly, Swedish writer Caroline Ivarsson, together with her producer Caroline Drab, received the €15,000 prize in the “After Bergman” screenplay competition, instigated by the Bergman Centre on Fårö Foundation – the organiser of the Bergman Week – and Film in Gotland, in order to focus on scriptwriting and to pass on the Bergman legacy.