Minneapolis, May 16, 2025 Minneapolis, MN — ​The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul announced today the full schedule for THE BERGMAN CENTURY, a sixteen film retrospective of one of world cinema’s greatest auteurs, Ingmar Bergman. Co-presented by the American Swedish Institute (ASI) and sponsored by the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, D.C., THE BERGMAN CENTURY is the Film Society’s tribute to that country’s greatest director. Showing May 25 through June 7 at the Film Society’s St. Anthony Main Theatre. Showtimes and information for The Bergman Century available at mspfilm.org.

In honor of Bergman’s 100th birthday, the Film Society proudly brings sixteen newly restored digital prints to the Twin Cities. Spanning three decades, The Bergman Century features his greatest achievements (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Cries and Whispers), his most controversial and innovative works (Hour of the Wolf, Persona), and lesser-known, though equally remarkable films (Port of Call, Shame, The Touch.)

“The Twin Cities has a rich tradition of celebrating its Swedish heritage,” says Susan Smoluchowski, Executive Director of the Film Society. “We are proud to be a part of the worldwide recognition of Ingmar Bergman, joining celebrations from New York, to Oslo, Stockholm, Montreal, London, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid, among many others.”

“We’re now into the second quarter of a year-long observance of Ingmar Bergman,” said Bruce Karstadt, President and CEO of the American Swedish Institute, and Honorary Consul of Sweden. “Born in Uppsala, Sweden in 1918, Bergman’s filmmaking career may be said to define serious cinema. How fortunate for Minnesota audiences to have a chance to revisit Ingmar Bergman’s body of work, his influence and his continuing relevance in contemporary cinema.”

Please contact Peter Schilling, Publicity Coordinator for the Film Society, with any questions or for publicity materials. A PDF of this press release has been attached for your convenience.

FULL LINEUP (in chronological order of original release year)

All films in Swedish w/English subtitles unless otherwise noted

PORT OF CALL (HAMNSTAD) In Bergman’s Port of Call, Berit, a suicidal young woman living in a working-class port town, unexpectedly falls for Gösta, a sailor on leave. Haunted by a troubled past and held in a vice grip by her domineering mother, Berit begins to hope that her relationship with Gösta might save her from self-destruction. 1948, 97min. Friday, May 25 at 7:00PM; Saturday, June 2 at 4:00PM; Monday, June 4 at 9:30PM

SAWDUST AND TINSEL (GYCKLARNAS AFTON) Ingmar Bergman presents the battle of the sexes as a ramshackle, grotesque carnival in Sawdust and Tinsel, one of the master’s most vivid early works. The story of the charged relationship between a turn-of-the-century traveling circus owner (Ake Grönberg) and his performer girlfriend (Harriet Andersson), the film features dreamlike detours and twisted psychosexual power plays. 1953, 92 min. Saturday, May 26 at 7:00PM; Wednesday, May 30 at 4:00PM; Saturday, June 2 at 9:30PM

SUMMER WITH MONIKA (SOMMAREN MED MONIKA) A girl (Harriet Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg) from working-class families in Stockholm run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it is not long before the pair are forced to return to reality. 1953. 97 min. Saturday, May 26 at 4:00PM and Thursday, May 31 at 9:30PM

SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (SOMMARNATTENS LEENDE) In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction. During a weekend in the country, the women collude to force the men’s hands in matters of the heart, exposing their pretensions and insecurities along the way. 1955, 108 min. Sunday, May 27 at 7:00PM; Friday, June 1 at 4:00PM; Wednesday, June 6 at 9:45PM

THE SEVENTH SEAL (DET SJUNDE INSEGLET) Disillusioned and exhausted after a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight (Max von Sydow) encounters Death on a desolate beach and challenges him to a fateful game of chess. Much studied, imitated, even parodied, but never outdone, Bergman’s stunning allegory of man’s search for meaning, The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet), was one of the benchmark foreign imports of America’s 1950s art-house heyday, pushing cinema’s boundaries and ushering in a new era of moviegoing. 1957, 96 min. Swedish, Latin w/English subtitles. Monday, May 28 at 7:00PM; Sunday, June 3 at 4:00PM; Tuesday, June 5 at 9:30PM

WILD STRAWBERRIES (SMULTRONSTÄLLET) Traveling to accept an honorary degree, Professor Isak Borg—masterfully played by veteran director Victor Sjöström—is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make peace with the inevitability of his approaching death. Through flashbacks and fantasies, dreams and nightmares, Wild Strawberries dramatizes one man’s remarkable voyage of self-discovery. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. 1957, 92 min. Tuesday, May 29 at 7:00PM; Sunday, June 3 at 1:00PM; Wednesday, June 6 at 4:00PM

THE MAGICIAN (ANSIKTET) Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician (Ansiktet) is an engaging, brilliantly conceived tale of deceit from one of cinema’s premier illusionists. Max von Sydow stars as Dr. Vogler, a nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions whose magic is put to the test in Stockholm by the cruel, eminently rational royal medical adviser Dr. Vergérus. The result is a diabolically clever battle of wits that’s both frightening and funny, shot in rich, gorgeously gothic black and white. 1958, 101 min. Wednesday, May 30 at 7:00PM; Monday, June 4 at 4:00PM; Thursday, June 7 at 9:30PM

THE VIRGIN SPRING (JUNGFRUKÄLLAN) Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. Starring frequent Bergman collaborator and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between paganism and Christianity, and of one father’s need to avenge the death of a child. 1960, 90 min. Sunday, May 27 at 9:30PM; Tuesday, May 29 at 4:00PM; Thursday, May 31 at 7:00PM

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (SÅSOM I EN SPEGEL) While vacationing on a remote island retreat, a family’s already fragile ties are tested when daughter Karin (Harriet Andersson) discovers her father has been using her schizophrenia for his own literary means. As she drifts in and out of lucidity, the father (Gunnar Björnstrand), along with Karin’s husband (Max von Sydow) and her younger brother (Lars Passgård) are unable to prevent Karin’s harrowing descent into the abyss of mental illness. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. 1961, 91 min. Sunday, May 26 at 9:30PM; Friday, June 1 at 7:00PM; Tuesday, June 5 at 4:00PM

PERSONA In the first of a series of legendary performances for Bergman, Liv Ullmann plays a stage actor who has inexplicably gone mute; an equally mesmerizing Bibi Andersson is the garrulous young nurse caring for her in a remote island cottage. While isolated together there, the women perform a mysterious spiritual and emotional transference that would prove to be one of cinema’s most influential creations. Acted with astonishing nuance and shot in stark contrast and soft light by the great Sven Nykvist, Persona is a penetrating, dreamlike work of profound psychological depth. 1966, 83 min. Friday, May 25 at 4:00PM and Monday, May 28 at 9:30PM

HOUR OF THE WOLF (VARGTIMMEN) The strangest and most disturbing of the films Bergman shot on the island of Fårö, Hour of the Wolf stars Max von Sydow as a haunted painter living in voluntary exile with his wife (Liv Ullmann). When the couple are invited to a nearby castle for dinner, things start to go wrong with a vengeance, as a coven of sinister aristocrats hastens the artist’s psychological deterioration. This gripping film is charged with a nightmarish power rare in the Bergman canon, and contains dreamlike effects that brilliantly underscore the tale’s horrific elements. 1968, 88 min. Friday, May 25 at 9:30PM; Saturday, June 2 at 7:00PM; Thursday, June 7 at 4:00PM

SHAME (SKAMMEN) Shame was Bergman’s scathing response to the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann star as musicians living in quiet retreat on a remote island farm, where the civil war that drove them from the city soon catches up with them. Amid the chaos and confusion of the military struggle, vividly evoked by Sven Nykvist’s handheld camera work, the two are faced with uncomfortable moral choices. This film, which contains some of the greatest scenes in Bergman’s oeuvre, shows the devastating impact of war on defenseless individuals. 1968, 103 min. Sunday, May 27 at 1:00PM; Tuesday, May 29 at 9:30PM; Sunday, June 3 at 7:00PM

THE TOUCH (BERÖRINGEN) With his underappreciated first English-language film, a relationship drama shot near his island retreat of Fårö, Bergman delivered a compelling portrait of conflicting desires. A chance encounter between seemingly contented housewife Karin (Bibi Andersson) and intense American archaeologist David (Elliott Gould) leads to the initiation of a torrid and tempestuous affair, one that eventually threatens the stability of her life with a respected local surgeon (Max von Sydow). Upon its release, Bergman declared this emotionally complex and sensitively performed film to be his first real love story. 1971, 115 min, in English. Saturday, May 26 at 1:00PM; Thursday, May 31 at 4:00PM; Monday, June 4 at 7:00PM

CRIES AND WHISPERS (VISKNINGAR OCH ROP) This existential wail of a drama from Ingmar Bergman concerns two sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann), keeping vigil for a third, Agnes (Harriet Andersson), who is dying of cancer and can find solace only in the arms of a beatific servant (Kari Sylwan). An intensely felt film that is one of Bergman’s most striking formal experiments, Cries and Whispers is a powerful depiction of human behavior in the face of death, positioned on the borders between reality and nightmare, tranquillity and terror. Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Director, winning Best Cinematography (Sven Nykvist). 1972, 91 min. Sunday, May 27 at 4:00PM; Friday, June 1 at 9:30PM; Tuesday, June 5 at 7:00PM

THE MAGIC FLUTE (TROLLFLÖJTEN) Ingmar Bergman puts his indelible stamp on Mozart’s exquisite opera in this sublime rendering of one of the composer’s best-loved works: a celebration of love, forgiveness, and the brotherhood of man. The Magic Flute (Trollflöjten) stars Josef Köstlinger as Tamino, the young man determined to rescue a beautiful princess from the clutches of parental evil. 1975, 135 min. Monday, May 28 at 4:00PM; Sunday, June 2 at 1:00PM; Wednesday, June 6 at 7:00PM

AUTUMN SONATA (HÖSTSONATEN) Autumn Sonata was the only collaboration between cinema’s two great Bergmans: Ingmar, the iconic director of The Seventh Seal, and Ingrid, the monumental star of Casablanca. The grand dame, playing an icy concert pianist, is matched beat for beat in ferocity by the filmmaker’s recurring lead Liv Ullmann, as her eldest daughter. Over the course of a day and a long, painful night that the two spend together after an extended separation, they finally confront the bitter discord of their relationship. This cathartic pas de deux, evocatively shot in burnished harvest colors by the great Sven Nykvist, ranks among Ingmar Bergman’s major dramatic works. Nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. 1978, 93 min. Monday, May 28 at 1:00PM; Wednesday, May 30 at 9:30PM; Thursday, June 7 at 7:00PM