Director Ingmar Bergman's anguish back in spotlight for centenary

A file photo of legendary Swedish movie director and playwright Ingmar Bergman in Stockholm, on June 2, 2003. PHOTO: AFP

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman, whose tales of anguished love and loneliness made him one of the 20th century's leading directors, is back in the spotlight with events to mark the centenary of his birth.

Bergman, who died in 2007 at 89, would have turned 100 on July 14, 2018.

To celebrate the occasion, the Ingmar Bergman Foundation has launched a year of festivities. His plays will be staged in numerous cities.

French, German and Swedish documentaries about the film-maker - who was tormented by childhood, women and death - are to hit screens.

Retrospectives, seminars and exhibitions will also be organised.

"Can you imagine, 60 remakes" of his plays have been staged so far, actress Liv Ullmann, one of his muses and one-time romantic partner, said.

"By next year, there'll be up to a hundred of them. That means the world is fascinated... They feel that Ingmar has something to say," added the 78-year-old, who starred in Bergman's films Persona (1966), Shame (1968) and Autumn Sonata (1978).

Some of Bergman's previously unpublished writings, including notebooks, drawings and collages, will also be released.

As part of the celebrations, Hagai Levi, creator of the popular television series The Affair, is to direct a TV remake of Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage, which explores the disintegration of a couple's marriage.

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