07/04/2010

Last year, Stig Björkman brought Scenes from the Playground, featuring exclusive, behind-the-scenes material from several Ingmar Bergman films, to Cannes Classics. This year, …But Film is My Mistress, the second part of Björkman’s retrospective documentary about the legendary Swedish director, will be unveiled in the same sidebar of the upcoming Cannes Film Festival (May 12-23).

Björkman (a well-known film critic and long-time associate of Bergman’s) and his producer Stina Gardell, of Mandaray Film & TV Production, were asked by the Ingmar Bergman Foundation to make two compilation films from unique, behind-the-scenes footage from Bergman’s films. Martin Scorsese’s World Film Foundation then joined in to commission those major film tributes, also co-financed by AB Svensk Filmindustri.

According to Gardell, …But Film is My Mistress is based on behind-the scenes footage from eight Bergman movies (from Persona to Saraband), chosen and commented on by eight world famous filmmakers: Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci, Tsai Ming-liang, Olivier Assayas, Martin Scorsese, Arnaud Desplechin, Lars von Trier and Liv Ullmann.

The Norwegian actress-director acts as storyteller here, looking at stills from Bergman’s films, seated at the same table where she was filmed by her former life partner and mentor in his last film opus, Saraband. She opens and closes …But Film is My Mistress and is the only filmmaker to be seen onscreen. The others are only heard off-camera speaking about Bergman.

World sales on the 66-minute film are handled by Svensk Filmindustri.