Ingmar Bergman’s 'Film Stories' to be published

The centenarian’s screenplays are 'the cornerstone of one of the 20th century’s most noteworthy Swedish authorships'.

This year, Ingmar Bergman would have turned 100. Throughout the year, Norstedts is celebrating the iconic filmmaker’s literary works by publishing six grand volumes of largely unseen material, as well as a study of Bergman the author, all in collaboration with the Ingmar Bergman Foundation. In addition, all of Bergman’s manuscripts are being published – The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries will be made available in Swedish for the first time ever.

Ingmar Bergman’s Film Stories will be available as print-on-demand, available via online retailers and in bookshops.

The following titles are currently available on demand:
Torment (1944), Summer Interlude (1951), Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), A Lesson in Love (1954), Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), The Magician (1958), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), The Silence (1963) and Persona (1966).

Additional titles will be published in time for Ingmar Bergman’s birthday on July 14th.

All 34 Film Stories will be published with afterwords by Jan Holmberg, CEO of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, and in some cases include forewords by the author himself.

'Bergman’s film stories are much more than pilots for the films', states Jan Holmberg. 'Rather than sketches, they are little masterpieces in their own right and belong in the ranks of great 20th-century literature. The fact that most of them are now being made available is a significant cultural milestone'.

Håkan Bravinger, literary director at Norstedts:
'The term film stories was coined by Bergman’s editor, Lasse Bergström. It suits these texts perfectly. They are not screenplays or theatrical scripts, but rather more akin to novellas, with inner psychological acuity and powerful dialogue – to such a degree that they retain their power regardless if one reads them on a page or sees them performed on a stage or screen. They took 60 years to write – and are, as a whole, the cornerstone of one of the 20th century’s most noteworthy Swedish authorships'.

Ingmar Bergman’s Film Stories will initially be published in Swedish. Hedlund Agency is managing international rights.