12/12/2003

Almost one million Swedish viewers watched Ingmar Bergman’s swan song Saraband [+see also:
trailer
film profile] when it was shown on television. The programme had an “exceptionally good performance”, according to Gunnar Carlsson from SVT, who produced the TV drama.

The world premiere on the small screen of Bergman’s loose follow-up to Scenes From a Marriage was positively received by the local and international press, such as British newspaper, The Guardian, which stated that “Saraband occupies the emotional twilight, the zone of eclipsed intensity that makes Bergman the Strindberg of the screen”.

Until early this autumn, there was hope that Saraband –first tipped for a Cannes, then Venice selection- would be shown on the big screen, but apparently Bergman was not happy with the transfer from HDS video to 35mm, a blow to Svensk Filmindustri (SF), which is responsible for the international distribution of the TV movie.

Produced by SVT Fiction with Svensk Filmindustri, ZDF, ARTE, NRK, RAI and YLE, Saraband is described by SF as a contemporary drama about power, liberation and reconciliation starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Borje Ahlstedt and Julia Dufvenius.