Double Palme D’Or winners the Dardenne brothers are to be guests of honour at this year’s Bergman Week (June 25 to July 1) on the island of Fårö in Sweden.

In visiting Fårö, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne follow in the footsteps of such previous guests as Ang Lee and Kenneth Branagh.

The Belgian filmmakers will be presenting their latest film, The Kid With A Bike. There will also be a screening of their favourite Ingmar Bergman movie, the hospital-set drama Brink Of Life (1958).

“I am very pleased that the Bergman Week can present two of the world’s most interesting directors, who time and again deliver films of astonishing quality. And of course we are proud that they have chosen Fårö as the location for their first public appearance in Sweden,” Jannike Åhlund, head of operations at the Bergman Center, the foundation behind the Bergman Week, commented.

Further details of this year’s Bergman Week programme have also been revealed. Alongside the Dardennes, attendees will include the author and playwright Peter Birro who will talk about Bergman and Strindberg, and Suzanne Osten, artistic director at the Stockholm City Theatre Unga Klara, who will give her own lecture on Bergman.

Musician Andreas Kleerup, who spent last summer as an artist in residence at the Ingmar Bergman Estate, will be back on the island for the opening of the Bergman Week.

Opera singers Håkan Hagegård and Elisabeth Erikson will lead a discussion on Bergman’s opera productions.

Also, Fanny and Alexander will be celebrated 30 years after its premiere with Stig Bjorkman showing excerpts from his film Fanny, Alexander and I while Lief Furhammar will screen Fanny, Alexander and other Bergman Children.

Other screenings will include Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice starring Erland Josephson, a regular Bergman collaborator who died in February.

Films about music and dance to screen will include Andrzej Wajda’s The Conductor, Wim Wenders’ Pina, Alain Corneau’s All the Mornings of the World and Bergman’s own The Magic Flute.

Bergman Week is arranged by The Fårö Bergman Center Foundation in collaboration with The Bergman Estate, Gotland Film Commission and Göteborg International Film Festival. The Bergman Week is financed with support from the Municipality of Gotland, Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, The Swedish Film Institute, The Swedish Institute, Wallonie-Bruxelles International and the Embassy of Belgium.

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