On July 30, which marks the 10th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman’s death, we would like to invite you to vernissage of an exhibition titled “Bergman’s Mirror”.

The curator of the exhibition is Professor Tadeusz Szczepański, a renowned expert in the director’s works, a lecturer of the Lodz Film School, author of a monograph “Zwierciadło Bergmana” (Bergman’s Mirror) devoted to the Swedish director and awarded among others with the Award of Bolesław Michałek.

The exhibition will showcase materials from the own holdings of the Museum and the private archive of Tadeusz Szczepański as well as materials obtained from the Embassy of Sweden, Ingmar Bergman Foundation (Stiftelsen Ingmar Bergman), Sjöberg Bildbyrå, Svensk Filmindustri, National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute, Polish Federation of Film Societies, Library of the Lodz Film School and the Jozef Pilsudski Regional and Municipal Public Library in Lodz. We will show you the creative workshop of the director, his approach to the script, staging, work with actors. We will also present Polish reception of work of author of The Seventh Seal, The Silence, Cries and Whispers or Fanny and Alexander.

Bergman, who had dealt with film-making for nearly 60 years, used to say about himself: “I am a liar, or – if the audience accepts the lie – a conjurer”.

The exhibition will comprise stills, posters for all the director’s films that were showed in Polish cinemas, film programmes and audiovisual materials developed in the Film Museum in Lodz. The importance of Bergman’s works is stressed in the materials by among others: Krzysztof Zanussi, Mariusz Wilczyński, Magdalena Łazarkiewicz, Filip Bajon, Robert Gliński and the Rector of the Lodz Film School, Mariusz Grzegorzek. We will also show you a magic lantern and projector – the same type which was used by Bergman.

“Bergman’s work, versatile, abundant in grand masterpieces, has ended but its artistic format, fundamental existential questions, universal depth of knowledge of human nature and humanistic measures contained in his film dramaturgy rank him in history among such giants of human spirit as Shakespeare, Moliere and Strindberg” – Professor Tadeusz Szczepański writes in the text that accompanies the exhibition.

Thanks to the collaboration with the Embassy of Sweden, the exhibition will be enriched by screenings of the film titled Trespassing Bergman directed by Jane Magnusson and Hynek Pallas. The authors of the documentary film, presented during the Venice Film Festival in 2013, take the viewers to the island of Fårö which for 60 years has been the site of Bergman’s house – a long building located nearby the beach where Persona is set. The film Trespassing Bergman features among others Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Ridley Scott, Michael Haneke, Ang Lee, Martin Scorsese, Lars von Trier, Wes Anderson, Isabella Rossellini and Robert De Niro, all talking about the Master in his own house. A sentence by Alejandro González Iñárritu: “If cinema was a religion, this would be Mecca, the Vatican” reflects the importance of Bergman and his works as well as his private space for the people of film.

We would like to invite you to the Kinematograf cinema to the screenings of the documentary Trespassing Bergman on 30 July, 30 August and 30 September.

We also plan a special event during the exhibition – a screening of Wild Strawberries recorded on archival 35 mm film. The screening will be preceded by a lecture by Professor Tadeusz Szczepański.

We would like to invite you to the vernissage of the exhibition Bergman’s Mirror in the Film Museum in Lodz on Sunday, 30 of July, at 5 PM.

Bergman’s Mirror
30 July – 22 October 2017
Film Museum in Lodz
pl. Zwycięstwa 1

Curator: Tadeusz Szczepański
In collaboration with: Krzysztof Jajko
Coordinator: Bogusława Bronowicka