Bergman donates rare footage, writings

Swedish filmmaking legend Ingmar Bergman will annotate and edit behind-the-scenes films describing the making of 18 of his movies as part of a donation of his private archives, the Swedish Film Institute said June 11.

Bergman, 83, recently donated manuscripts, notebooks, plot summaries, unpublished books, sket-ches and photographs as well as the previously unseen footage to the institute.

Bergman will narrate excer--pts from the footage of the making of "Wild Strawberries" (1957), "The Seventh Seal" (1957), "Persona" (1966), "Cries and Whispers" (1972) and "After the Rehearsal" (1984), among others."This would be worth a fortune if it were sold on the market. But it will not be sold," said the head of the Swedish Film Institute, Ase Kleveland.

The material will be made available to researchers and educational establishments, though the aim is to provide the general public with access.

Maaret Koskinen, professor of cinema studies at the University of Stockholm, was the first person Bergman asked to study the collection.

"?I have a room full of stuff. Do you want to go through it?' Berg-man asked me," she said, describing the archives as a "unique cultural work."

Koskinen will publish a book this autumn on the material.

Bergman is at work on the movie "Saraband," returning af-ter 30 years to Marianne and Jo-han, the couple portrayed by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson in the 1972 movie "Scenes From a Marriage."