Movies Features
Ingmar Bergman's archives given world heritage status
By Lennart Simonsson
Jun 26, 2007, 17:59 GMT

Stockholm - On the very day a festival that honours Swedish director Ingmar Bergman opened, it was announced in Sweden Tuesday that his archives have been inscribed in the United Nations culture organization's Memory of the World Register.

'It is with great joy and pride that The Ingmar Bergman Foundation has received the news that Bergman's archives have been included in the Memory of the World Register,' Astrid Soderbergh Widding, head of the foundation, said of the recent decision.

The UNESCO programme was set up in 1997 to preserve valuable archive holdings and library collections. The decision to include Bergman, was taken at meeting of the UNESCO panel in South Africa earlier this month.

The Bergman archives include hand and type-written original manuscripts, drafts, notebooks, production papers, photographs and behind-the-scenes-footage from the shooting of his films, and private and professional correspondence, the foundation said.

Bergman donated the material in 2002 to the Swedish Film Institute that set up a foundation to administrate, preserve and provide information about his works.

The foundation said it hoped to be able to offer a first digitalized selection by 2008, when he his due to mark his 90th birthday.

The Bergman Week opened Tuesday on Faro, the tiny island just off the northern tip of the Swedish Baltic Sea island Gotland to which Bergman retired. The festival runs to July 1.

British actor and director Kenneth Branagh is slated to introduce his favourite Bergman film, Fanny and Alexander (1982) at the festival.

He was also due to provide a sneak premiere of his own film, The Magic Flute, at this year's festival.

The Branagh film, which is scheduled for official premiere in August, is one of several festival events planned in the coming days.

Swedish actress Bibi Andersson was expected to attend the festival. In an interview with Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter, Andersson was asked which of the films she made with Bergman was her favourite.

'I have always answered Persona because that is the part where I won prizes and was judged to have been good in,' Andersson said. 'But all the films I have made with him have left a good mark.'

In the 1966 movie, Andersson plays a nurse who helps an actress - portrayed by Norwegian Liv Ullmann - who has withdrawn from the world.

In addition to numerous movies, Andersson also appeared in several of Bergman's stage productions.

Other participants at the festival include Estonian-born pianist Kabi Laretei, once married to Bergman. She was scheduled to discuss their musical collaboration.

Last year, Hollywood director Ang Lee visited Faro and in addition to screening his film The Ice Storm, also talked about his favourite Bergman film, Wild Strawberries.