Cinémathèque française in Paris pay tribute to Bo Widerberg

Bo Widerberg during the shooting of The Man on the Roof, which opens the retrospective in Paris Photo: Archive photo, Swedish Film Institute.

Cinémathèque française in Paris will pay tribute to Swedish director Bo Widerberg with a retrospective which takes place October 30 to November 9. The programme includes all feature-length solo efforts directed by Widerberg, from the debut Barnvagnen / The Pram (1963) to Oscar nominated Lust och fägring stor / All Things Fair (1995).

After stirring a debate about the stale state of Swedish film in the early 1960’s, Bo Widerberg created a sensation with his 1963 debut Barnvagnen / The Pram and Oscar nominated Kvarteret Korpen / Raven’s End, released the same year, in which his ideas of a more realistic and less script-based cinema were manifested, heavily influenced by the various new waves emerging all over Europe at the time. Famous for his lyrical visual imagery, leaving a lot of room for his actors’ improvisations, Widerberg is now regarded as one of the most prominent Swedish directors of all time. Despite his penchant for a more contemporary cinema, many of his finest efforts are evocative depictions of films set in the past, such as Elvira Madigan (1967) Ådalen 31 (1969) and Joe Hill (1971).

– We are very happy about the Widerberg retrospective in Paris, says Kajsa Hedström, curator and special projects’ manager at the Swedish Film Institute. Swedish film history is so much more than the silent classics and Ingmar Bergman, and it is encouraging to see this resurgent interest in the films of Widerberg, following similar retrospectives at the German Film Institute in Frankfurt and at the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna in 2021.

Bo Widerberg's films have won several awards around the world. Twice he has been awarded Guldbagge –The Swedish National Award for Best Director. Pia Degermark won Best Actress in Cannes for his Elvira Madigan. Twice his films have been nominated for an Oscar and five times for the Palme d'Or.

Most of the films screened at the Cinémathèque française come from French distributor Malavida Films in the form av digital restorations carried out by the Swedish Film Institute and producer AB Svensk Filmindustri, but some archival prints of rare films are provided by the Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute.

Present in Paris are Swedish critic Mårten Blomkvist (author of a Widerberg biography, published in 2011), and the director’s daughter Nina Widerberg.