Dardenne Brothers travel north for Fårö’s Bergman Week

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

27/03/2012 - On their first visit to Sweden, Belgian director brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, whose The Kid with a Bike [trailer, film focus] won the the Jury Grand Prix at last year's Cannes International Film Festival, will talk about their work at the Bergman Week on Fårö, which takes place between June 25-July 1.

The Dardennes' five most recent films have been selected for competition on the Côte d’Azur, and two of them – Rosetta (1999), The Child [trailer, film focus] (2005) – were awarded the Golden Palm. ”Much like Ingmar Bergman, they don’t shy away from difficult issues such as morality, evil, and the hope for a better life,” said Jannike Åhlund, head of operations at the Bergman Centre, which is organising the Bergman Week.

Besides discussing The Kid with a Bike, the Belgian directors will introduce the screening of their favourite Bergman film, the childbirth drama Brink of Life (1958) which – at Cannes - garnered Bergman the prize for Best Director and Bibi Andersson, Eva Dahlbeck, Barbro Hiort af Ornäs, Ingrid Thulin for Best Actress(es).

Bergman first came to the Baltic island of Fårö in 1960, to – reluctantly - scout locations for Through a Glass Darkly. The visit made a deep impression, and he lived and worked there for long periods of his life till he died in 2005. Seven of his films were shot on the island, and he is buried at the cemetary of the Fårö Church.

Swedish speakers at the Bergman Week include author-playwright Peter Birro, about Bergman’s relation with August Strindberg; director at Stockholm’s Unga Klara Theatre Suzanne Osten, who will share her views on Bergman artistically, symbolically and personally. Opera singers Håkan Hagegård and Elisabeth Erikson (both of whom were in Bergman’s The Magic Flute (1975) will discuss the director's opera productions.