About Bergman Center

The purpose of the Fårö Bergman Center Foundation is to manage and develop the public legacy of Ingmar Bergman in a multitude of forms. While there is much domestic interest in Bergman, international interest is huge! To facilitate that interest is vital to us! There is a strong demand for a meeting place for all Bergman lovers, and Fårö is the natural site.

Ingmar Bergman first came to Fårö in 1960, in reluctant search of a shooting location for Through a Glass Darkly. He’d actually had the Orkney Islands in mind, but his encounter with Fårö left a deep and immediate impression on him. Here he lived and worked for forty years, until his death in 2007.

Bergman shot a total of seven films on Fårö: Through a Glass Darkly (1960), Persona (1966), Shame (1968), A Passion (1969), Fårö Document (1969), Scenes From a Marriage (1972) and Fårö Document 1979. Few filmmakers have been, along with their work, so closely associated with a certain geographic location. The barren landscape with its wind-torn trees, meadows and sand and shingle beaches, and its harsh, white light are synonymous with a world class filmography.

The Bergman Center and the former Fårö school

The efforts to create an international meeting place through a Bergman Center with a broad appeal continue. We want to create a place which is equally attractive to locals and foreign visitors – a broad spectrum encompassing tourists with cultural interests, researchers, film workers and students.

As of January 1, 2011, The Fårö Bergman Center Foundation, will formally accept the donation of Fårö school, from the Municipality of Gotland. The proximity to the sea and the island’s unique landscape and nature are important decisive features in the school’s transformation into an attractive, international meeting place. The location itself is a source of inspiration for various ways of experiencing light – and of relating to the artistry of Ingmar Bergman and the visual worlds he inhabited. The school building stands in the very landscape and amongst the very people that were so dear to the director during his lifetime.

In the spring of 2010 the Bergman Center arranged an architechtural competition aiming for a radical reconstruction of the school building’s new life as a functional Bergman Center. The competition was won by acclaimed duo Tham & Videgård, proposing a visionary design, well in accordance with our own dreams.

However, as the prospects for financing a full-scale redesign have proven bleak, we are now temporarily resorting to a ”plan B”. During the year, we will aim for a renovation and adjustment of the locales to fit the basic needs of a Bergman Center in progress; exhibits, lectures, workshops and screenings. We will add an entre, a café and a library for visitors of the house and the beautiful park overlooking the sea.

The Bergman Week

Alongside with our around-the-year bus tours to the locales of the films Ingmar Bergman shot on the island, the annual Bergman Week is currently the most prominent activity under the Bergman Center umbrella. The basic festival concept for the Bergman Week – films, guests, seminars, exhibits and excursions – is constantly under scrutiny for further enhancement och revitalising, in order to continue attracting visitors – Swedish and foreign. Recent additions such as Masterclass and Bergman Lecture (the latter in cooperation with the Bergman Estate) from highly qualified directors, writers or academics, have now been incorporated into the regular annual programming of the Bergman Week.

Experiences and Learning

The Bergman Center as a meeting place will give visitors the possibility to both experiences and a deepened insight and knowledge on Ingmar Bergman and his work – but also an appreciation of film art in a wider sense. A permanent exhibition will be combined with temporary exhibits and other activities. The pedagogical activities focus om the visitor actually experiencing something during his/her visit. These activities will be arranged in cooperation with local, national and intenational partners. The Bergman Center will in addition arrange seminars and conferences and offer facilities for other interested parties.

We will also offer further education and continuation courses for teachers on a national and international level and establish various children and youth activities in cooperation with the local pre school, pedagogical networks and organisations for childrens’ culture.

Currently, we are establishing an intimate cooperation with the artist residency at the Bergman Estate by offering facilities and support in conjunction with the cultural payback that artists at the Bergman Estate are obliged to render as as a part of their stay. Together with the Bergman Estate we share an ambition to render Fårö a natural starting point for artistic acitivities and academic research for artists, students and researchers alike.

A Meeting Place for Filmmakers

We will devote even more energy in developing the role of the Bergman Week as meeting place for the film industry and young filmmakers in different talent activities. The base is ”After Bergman”, a competition focussing on best idea for a film script and was carried out during Bergman Week of 2010 in cooperation with Film Gotland and the network Council of Regional Film Resource Centers. The aim is to host an annual talent campus, together with Gotland – Film Island network.

The Bergman Center works in cooperation with

The Ingmar Bergman Foundation
The Bergman Estate on Fårö Foundation

The Bergmancenter is financed with support from Leader Gotland and The Foundation for the Culture of the Future.