…and after the Big Bergman Safari, everyone goes to Radio Cinema

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

27/06/2012 - The Big Bergman Safari – a guided tour by bus visiting the shooting locations for Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s films Persona, Through a Glass Darkly, Shame and Scenes From a Marriage – is only one of the attractions for the participants in the international Bergman Week, unspooling on the director’s island of Fårö between June 25-July 1.

Today (June 27), guests are invited to Radio Cinema at the Laterna Magica, where they will listen to the radio play A Swedish Summer Night, written by the late Swedish actor Erland Josephsson – a Bergman favourite – inspired by cast and crew waiting for filming to resume of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice on Gotland in 1985, in which he starred. Josephson died last February.

Guests of honour during the programme, which is organised by Jannike Åhlund - head of operations of the Bergman Centre – are Belgian director brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who - on their first visit to Fårö (and Sweden), will screen and discuss their Cannes-awarded The Kid with a Bike [trailer, film focus] (2011) as well as their favourite Bergman title, Brink of Life (1958).

The director’s works in focus include Fanny and Alexander (1982), which will unspool in its five-hour version. Stefan Larsson and Linus Tunström will talk about how they transferred the film to the stage; Stig Björkman will show excerpts from his Fanny, Alexander and I and film professor Leif Furhammar will show Fanny, Alexander and other Bergman Children.

After concluding this year’s Bergman Week, the Bergman Centre will start reconstructing the former school on Fårö, having received €1.8 million from the Structural Fund of Småland and Öarna. New offices, a combined theatre and cinema, an outdoor stage, and permanent Bergman exhibitions will be ready for next year’s 10th anniversary of the event.