When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
In Apache territory, a supply Army column heads for the next fort, an ex-scout searches for the killer of his Native wife, and a housewife abandons her husband to rejoin her Apache lover's tribe.
Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.
Television adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.
Early in the 20th century, middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman and his young wife, Anne, have still not consummated their marriage, while Fredrik's son finds himself increasingly attracted to his new stepmother. To make matters worse, Fredrik's old flame Desiree makes a public bet that she can seduce him at a romantic weekend retreat where four couples convene, swapping partners and pairing off in unexpected ways.
Filmed during the first ever Guldbaggen (golden scarab) awards, it was edited and developed that night and shown for the first time to the guests at the after party.
Using original footage and interviews, family photos, and excepts from many of the actress's screen and stage performances, the film explores sources of Liv Ullman's creativity, the influence of her Norwegian heritage, her relationship with Ingmar Bergman, her views on being a woman and mother in contemporary society, and the writing of her autobiography,
A French housekeeper with a mysterious past brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late 19th century Denmark.
Arn, the son of a high-ranking Swedish nobleman is educated in a monastery and sent to the Holy Land as a knight templar to do penance for a forbidden love.
Arn has served his term in the Holy land and returns home to be reunited with his beloved Cecilia. When he returns home, he discovers that political forces tries to separate him and Cecilia - but thanks to queen Blanka they can finally get married. Arn knows that war is looming and with his martial knowledge he starts to build an army at his new home at Forsvik.
A gripping and intense thriller about honour, loyalty, and the courage to fight for what you believe.
Aviation disaster-prone Joe Patroni must contend with nuclear missiles, the French Air Force and the threat of the plane splitting in two over the Alps.
A traveling magician and his troupe arrive in a Swedish town in the 1840s, where their act is scrutinized by local authorities and a skeptical medical official. Their stay leads to a series of confrontations that test the boundaries between performance, belief, and deception.
A recently divorced man and an emotionally devastated widow begin a love affair.
Adaptation of Arthur Miller's semi-autobiographical play about Quentin, a Jewish intellectual from New York who must reexamine his life and his troubled relationship with Holga.
This intimate chamber drama, set in a maternity ward, follows the emotional crises of three women as they grapple with motherhood.
Television adaptation of Strindberg's play about the midsummer romance between the noblewoman and the valet.
During a future ice age, dying humanity occupies its remaining time by playing a board game called Quintet. For one small group, this obsession is not enough. They play the game with living pieces, and only the winner survives.
After an unauthorized letter suggesting U.S. support for a Russian attack on China is sent to Moscow, a former naval officer and his team go undercover to retrieve it. Their plans are disrupted when a cunning politician raids their hideout.
A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.
A couple's marriage falls apart after the death of their son. Based on Henrik Ibsen's "Little Eyolf"
In rural Sweden of the early 1950s, little Elina goes to school again after recovering from tuberculosis, the same illness that has killed her father a few years earlier. Elina's family belongs to Finnish-speaking Finns frowned upon by a staunch schoolmistress who starts hounding Elina for questioning her authority. Elina's mother, sister, and a liberal young male teacher all try to mediate the ensuing battle of wills between Elina and Miss Holm. Elina finds consolation in wandering out on the dangerous marshlands to have imaginary conversations with her dead father. Written by Markku Kuoppamäki
Don Juan is sent from Hell to Earth with a mission: to seduce a virgin in order to spoil her pure wedding. The mission becomes frantic when Don Juan falls in love for the first time in centuries.
A small picturesque town at the turn of the century. The conservative views of the townspeople are shaken when they find out that the school teacher Franzén published his own poetry anonymously many years ago. At the same time he acknowledges his love affair with a waitress at the city hotel, Fanny. What is most upsetting is the fact that Fanny has a grownup daughter, Anna, with no known father. Could their poet teacher be the father although he and Fanny are not married?
A semi-fictional account on the fatidic September 11, 1973, when the military commanded by General Pinochet took over the power from socialist president Salvador Allende, initiating a dictatorship that lasted until 1988 causing the deaths and disappearances of many people.
A young couple, Sophia and Freddie has just got their first baby, but this little thing makes their lives way to complicated and difficult for them to handle. They both have jobs, Sophia is an actress and Freddie a balloon-flier, which makes it tough to be home with the baby and such. They also have to deal with Sophia´s family, which includes a depressed dad, a close to senile mother, and two eccentric sisters. The family life is nothing what Sophia and Freddie expected.
Carl-Gustaf Nykvist's documentary about his father, Sven Nykvist. The film is based on Sven's memoirs with Sven himself as narrator. A journey to the place of birth, Moheda, constitutes the hub of the film and during the journey friends and memories emerge. Written by Fredrik Klasson
Britt and Danin meet by chance one evening in Stockholm. During the long, bright night in June they act a half childish, half erotically strongly conscious hide-and-seek game with each other and with their own feelings
A couple have installed a new high tech television system in their children's room and become more and more vary of it.
Pretentious critic Cornelius is writing a biography on a famous cellist and to do some research he stays in the cellist's house for a few days. He doesn't manage to get an interview with the man, but by talking to all the women who live with him, he comes to learn a lot about the musician's private life none the less. Cornelius then decides to use this information to blackmail the cellist into performing a composition that he, Cornelius, has written.
In this somber, psychological drama about the conflict between a man's innermost feelings and a society that puts these feelings in a strait jacket, the mood is ruminative and depressing throughout. Alone, Viktor (Sven Wolter) heads off for his usual summer vacation to some islands where he can ostensibly look for antiques for his wife's shop in Stockholm. His marriage is a failure or worse -- he raped his wife before he left home, and he is obsessed by erotic imaginings. Once on the islands, he makes friends with a little girl whose mother is mentally disturbed and is kept by her husband in a locked room. The islanders are as tight-lipped as Viktor, and any communication is stiff and artificial. Viktor's own alienation begins to slip as he takes surprising, violent action to turn around the imprisoned mother's life -- but it does not work, nothing seems to work -- and his last actions indicate that he may not be willing to simply give up.
Leningrade. Galina works as a restorer at Catherine Palace; she is a sculptor as well and takes her profession very seriously and enthusiastically. Vera, a friend from art school, sees her loneliness and introduces her to her husband's colleagues - friendly Mitya and mysterious Andrey. Soon Galina finds herself torn between the two men.
Sweden, 1782. Jacob, a young noble, somewhat wild and vehement, returns from his studies in France. After his absence, he returns home happy, but is even happier of meeting his beloved sister Charlotte again. However, she has been promised to the Baron Alsmeden, a man of great influence at court, and this fact will awake a feeling like jealousy in Jacob.
When a divorced museum director takes a young girl as a lover things quickly become more complicated when her ex-husband also engages in a relationship with the girl.
A film where anything can happen - the hero and the heroine changes their faces, age, look, names, and so on. The only same thing: The love between man and woman... in an archetypical love story cut from 500 classics from all around the world.
A small forest town is trying to promote itself as a place for tourists to come enjoy the therapeutic hot springs and unspoiled nature. Dr. Stockmann, however, makes the inconvenient discovery that the nature around the village is not so unspoiled. In fact, the runoff from the local tanning mill has contaminated the water to a dangerous degree. The town fathers argue that cleaning up the mess would be far too expensive and the publicity would destroy the town's reputation, so therefore news of the pollution should be suppressed. Dr. Stockmann decides to fight to get the word out to the people, but receives as very mixed reaction.
Two twins, separated at birth, meet again by chance many years later. One is a progressive but insensitive mayor of a small town, the other a clown at a circus.
A Swedish housewife begins an adulterous affair with an American archaeologist, unaware of his emotional scars as a Holocaust survivor; consequently, their relationship will be painfully difficult.
A young girl dreams of a birthday party, where family and friends from her day-care center are invited. But in fact, her parents are always quarreling.
Three Scottish noblemen escape from Gripsholm Castle and break into the home of Lord Arne. They kill everyone except for Lord Arne's adopted daughter Elsalill.
Johan and Marianne are married and seem to have it all. Their happiness, however, is a façade for a troubled relationship, which becomes even rockier when Johan admits that he's having an affair. Before long, the spouses separate and move towards finalizing their divorce, but they make attempts at reconciling. Even as they pursue other relationships, Johan and Marianne realize that they have a significant bond, but also many issues that hinder that connection.
As they tour Sweden in a theatrical production of "Lysistrata", performing to often uncomprehending audiences, three women find their own lives and marriages mirrored in Aristophanes’s play. Soon, onstage drama, offstage reality, and surrealist fantasies begin to collide.
A biopic of the mathematician Sonia Kovalevsky.
Stefan Lindman is a police officer in Boros, Sweden. When his mentor and retired former partner Herbert Molin is brutally murdered in the remote town of Sveg, Lindman travels north to investigate. The more Lindman digs into the mysterious killing, the less he is sure to have known the man he feels so much indebted to...
Young Anna Rydell comes to a boarding-school for girls. She is very shy and the other girls don't really try to get to know her. The French teacher Martin Andreasson, who Anna falls in love with, lives at the boarding-school with his wheel chair-bound wife. Her handicap has made her depressed and Martin finds it hard to love her like he used to do.
A journey through Swedish queer film history.
In the early fifties Ingmar Bergman got himself a cine-camera, a 9.5 mm Bell & Howell, which he often used both privately and in his work. "Bilder från lekstugan" ("Images from the Playground") embark on these films, giving a diverse representation of one of the greatest artists in cinema.
A young woman, living in a relationship, falls in love with a married man.
Gammel-Nils works as a guide at Glimmingehus and guides us through this movie about love and ghosts.
Married couple have romantic interludes in the summer, she at their summer cottage, him in the apartment in town.
Set in Italy, the story takes place in this very country, during WW2, where German occupation army ruled everything, just before the allied forces came, in 1944. Crawford plays here a doctor whose son has been shot by the Germans. Of course he has no more taste in life. He continues his work as a German officers' physician. One day, he throws a bomb just in the middle of German troops. Many soldiers and officers are killed. Some time later, the lead officer of the Nazis troops suspects the doctor to be the responsible of the explosion. He lets him know that he himself knows...
After the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. A Russian engineer gets the assignment to purchase locomotives from Sweden. Paid in gold. Claimed by the opponents of the revolution.
Hindu god Indra has a daughter Agnes, who visits Earth to find out if people have legitimate complaints. She marries a lawyer from Bergen and has children, but is disillusioned by marriage and embarks on a journey among men.
Two journalists marry but the husband grows unhappy when he is left to take care of their child and she focuses on her career.
Rod Taylor plays a United Nations bio-warfare disarmament expert whose lonely wife (Catherine Jourdan) has a steamy affair while she's away in France. But soon she finds out the hard way that her lover is not quite the charming and stable guy she thought he was, and starts to fear him and wonder about his true motives.
A tribute to Swedish film, which was made to celebrate the 100th anniversary of film in 1995 and consists of about a hundred clips from Swedish film history with many of its stars.
A man is fired from his office job and at the same time he has a suspicion that his wife is cheating on him. The movie follows the desperate and dramatic reactions that the man makes up in his mind.
The story opens just before Christmas, when solitary, apathetic bank clerk Flemming Borck uncovers a plot to rob his bank. After doing a little rookie recon, Borck identifies the would-be bank robber as a faux shopping-mall Santa Claus, and counter-plots to steal the money himself and let Santa take the blame. This works out about as badly as you might imagine, and our bumbling protagonist spirals further and further away from the carefree, laconic lifestyle he had hoped to ensure for himself.
A big noisy family lives in the music bus. They all play different instruments and different melodies but one day they decide to work together in harmony.
About the life of the student, Bo Dahlin. Bo's parents are divorced. Both have been unfaithful. Bo is engaged to Kerstin, but only has eyes for Anita. Anita is filled with self-disgust.
"I am blushing" - Swedish comedy about a film crew traveling to the Philippines to find environments for a movie.
Wisconsin farm girl Elizabeth Carlson leaves family and her English teacher lover behind and escapes to New York. There she soon makes a career for herself as a fashion model. During a vernissage she's approached by a mysterious man whose motives are unclear...
Four sailors stranded in Rio are about to retrieve their salary for a salvage. The only requirement is that they ALL must be sober.
Inga Tidblad started acting in 1921 and became one of Sweden's greatest and most successful actresses of all time. Daughter Meg Westergren, colleagues Bibi Andersson, Helena Bergström, Thommy Berggren and Sven Wollter are a few who talk and remember her as a person and as an actor.
In this somber drama, residents of a small island accuse a nobleman of killing a priest when the man of the cloth disappears. The two were seen arguing, and the nobleman is the main suspect. The priest is only away on a sabbatical trying to regain his faith, but the islanders continue to put pressure on the innocent noble.
An intimate portrait of director Mai Zetterling that includes interviews with Zetterling, David Hughes (Zetterling’s ex-husband and the cowriter of LOVING COUPLES, NIGHT GAMES, and THE GIRLS), and actors Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Bibi Andersson.
The story of an unspecified country ravaged by civil war, with its rebels and spies.
A young woman faces an arranged marriage imposed by her aunts as the hour of her suitor’s arrival approaches. Adapted for television from Hjalmar Bergman’s one-act play, the film uses intimate staging and close observation to explore coercion and quiet despair.
Monika and Nadja are sisters and ballet dancers. Lately, Monika has lost some of her interest in ballet. Instead, she marries the businessman Ragnar. But eventually, she discovers that the comfortable life she has does not suit her, and returns to the ballet academy.
A quirky, but happily in love young Italian couple fall in with an older, but distinctly reserved Swedish couple whilst on vacation on islands off the coast of Southern Italy. Eventually the couples seem to warm to each other as the infectious youths bring the standoffish couple out of their shells. But there is a sinister reason for the Swedish couple's cold behavior and it may spell doom for them all.
A sunny portrait of Stockholm narrated by Bibi Andersson. Widescreen, Eastmancolor.
A seemingly ordinary day in October. A woman has since she separated from her husband lived in a single room with a separate entrance. But for her this is not an ordinary day. She only has six hours left to live.
About August Strindberg's marriage to Siri von Essen. She was married when she met him, but abandoned her husband, became Strindberg's mistress and later his wife.
Two part biography of Greta Garbo - 1. The Temptress 2. The Clown. Reminiscences of her early life in Stockholm, with excerpts from her films. Narrated by Bibi Andersson.
A turbulent era in Argentine politics is highlighted in this well-wrought drama, set in Buenos Aires at the end of 1945, about Clara (Graciela Borges), a young, half-Jewish woman awakening to the reasons behind the political conflicts of her time and place. Clara's father was a Communist who fought the Nazis in Argentina and possessed a list of the top Nazi exiles and their contacts. Through a former lover, Clara -- a successful broadcast journalist -- begins to see her Jewish roots (and the leftists) in a whole new light. Meanwhile, the political storms sweeping through Argentina are setting the stage for the Peronist government to come.
A featurette on Ingmar Bergman's Persona.
Documentary about the play Miss Julie and dramatist August Strindberg
Orphan boy and vicar's daughter fall in love but her father is strongly opposed to their relationship.
The depressed Adolf has been visited by his new friend friend Gustav who is in contact with him about what he is going to do with his wife Tekla.
Architect Dumas dies from a bullet of his own gun in front of his house. The police suspect his young Swedish wife Catherine and her English lover Tom Hastings. After numerous interrogations, in which they entangle themselves in contradictions, they try to flee, but are soon both caught and brought to trial, he in England, she in France. Only when Catherine keeps on proclaiming her innocence, superintendent Corbier finally considers believing her.
"Crocodile tears" - Fellowship is replaced by suspicion and hatred in a Stockholm suburb. Wheelchair-bound retiree Hugo lives with his wife and his mentally unstable son.
A successful fifty-year-old entrepreneur, Tullio Conforti, opposed to divorce for religious reasons, is in fact separated from his wife and leads a frenetic life divided between numerous lovers.
The trio of actresses have ostensibly gathered to pay tribute to Mai Zetterling, but also reminisce about their own careers and the illustrious figures, including Ingmar Bergman, they have worked with.
A Swedish journalist in Buenos Aires is about to reveal the circumstances surrounding the young Swedish-Argentine woman Lena Melin's disappearance. The military junta of Argentina is threatening to deport him.
Lieutenant Glahn arrives in a small village in northern Norway. He wants to live in peace in the company of his dog. The young Edvarda stirs emotions in the lieutenant.
Structured as six interconnected episodes, Rabies depicts cruelty as a contagious force: each character, wounded or humiliated, passes that violence on to another. Filmed for Swedish television, Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Olle Hedberg’s morality play presents human behavior as a relentless chain of transferred suffering.
About U-Boat 39 the first U-Boat sunk in WW2 by the UK Carrier Ark Royal.
A documentary about En Passion
A woman helps a prisoner free at Rome's airport and then falls in love with him.
Portrait of Ingmar Bergman, made while he was working on The Touch, about his professional and private life in the early 1970s.
Produced in 1968 for New York's WNET public television station and filmed by Gunnar Fischer, host Lewis Freedman visits director Ingmar Bergman during the production of SHAME. They discuss some of Bergman's major works leading up to SHAME as well as the just-released HOUR OF THE WOLF.
A roundtable conversation was recorded for television in 2007 at the Stockholm International Film Festival.
A mysterious violent man breaks into a rich couples apartment and holding his wife hostage. The threatening and dangerous situation devolve into an erotic game.
Karin, a Swedish music student in Rome, falls in love with Bruno, a medical student. After learning he is married, she returns to Sweden, where she meets and marries David, an American diplomat. When he is assigned to Rome, Karin’s past unexpectedly comes back into her life.
Documentary about the Woman in Ingmar Bergman's Movies
Anders and Sylvia are set to be married, but Sylvia says 'no' and runs away at the altar.
An intimate profile of Hédi Fried, a Swedish writer, therapist and her little sister Livia Fränkel, both Holocaust survivors. While Hédi is very active among other survivors and in opinion-making, Livia chooses to forget.
A meeting between the Swedish/French Simone and the Norwegian Stein at a book convention in Frankfurt turns into something more. They keep contact by phone and cassettes, but it seems they don't dare to take the relationship any further.
A Professor comes home carrying a paper bag with food. Among the goods in the bag is apricot jam. His wife reacts strongly, since they always have eaten orange marmalade. The Professor leaves his house and checks into a hotel.
This European existential drama utilizes complex symbols inspired by abstract psychological theories to explore the effects and reasons behind a young classical actor's decision to stop talking. No one knows why Massimo has vowed to stop talking. Other than speaking dialog from classical plays, Massimo refuses to say a single word. His father, a classic-literature professor believes it reflects to a disappointing love affair. His new girlfriend thinks Massimo is rebelling against his mother, a poet. A director learns of Massimo and commissions his mother to write a play about him. Though Massimo plays himself in the play, and does speak, he returns to silence when the play is finished.
As he does at the end of every summer, Antonio climbs onto his roof to sweep out his chimney. From this vantage point, he sees that repairs have begun on one of the neighbouring houses - the one formerly inhabited by the "Nazi" (a guy's name), which after ten years of abandonment is known to the whole neighbourhood as the "mystery house". With the arrival of fall, Antonio will uncover love, deception, and death, by watching through his window.
Lena and her husband Sven argues in a summer cabin by the sea. She runs away, leaving Sven with his friend Pelle. A travelling projectionist turns up in the evening and shows them some films of how a relationship can look like from different perspectives.
Based on the play by August Strindberg, Miss Julie vividly depicts the battle of the sexes and classes that ensues when Julie, a wealthy businessman's daughter, falls for Jean, her father's bitter servant.
Middle-aged lust: a man, in his thirteenth and therefore omen-filled marriage year, cheats on his wife.
1976 brings several events that leave their mark on Sweden. Silvia Sommerlath marries King Carl Gustaf, and Thorbjörn Fälldin takes over as the new prime minister. On the music scene, international visits stand out when the rock bands Kiss and Sweet come to Sweden. And as Christmas approaches, Trazan Apansson appears on the TV screen for the very first time.
A short documentary capturing behind-the-scenes footage from the production of Wild Strawberries, offering a glimpse of Ingmar Bergman at work with his cast and crew during the making of one of his most celebrated films.
She has been on stage for over sixty years and has played all the great female roles. Now she is working on a new play, but at the same time she is facing the end at the age of 83 – and it doesn’t feel nice. Already in 1969, Marie met her great love, the actor Jan Malmsjö. Now she talks about the great passion that struck her even though she was already married, and about what everyday love looks like in older age.