ArnoldSwedish government to donate $3 mil to preserve the work of Bergman
You know an artist is a powerful cultural force when the government of his country is donating 20 million Sweidsh Crowns ($3 mil. US) to aid in teh preservation of his films, telefilms and screenplays. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt released comments in a daily that he was a strong compnent of Swedish artistic culture and the money would go to preserve mostly films he wrote or directed. The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, a Swedish organization which preserves nearly everything he ever created including all of his screenplays, many notes, photographs and sketches for films, is planning on making their archive digital in an effort to make his work more accessible, they will be a large benfactor of the government's donation. The donation will also be used to purchase copyrights and hopfully allow the films, many of which are all but unavailable and many in very poor condition, needing a good restoration (Criterion anyone?), to make the rounds to festivals again, who are clamoring to get their hands on some of his more rare work to screen retrospectives. Bergman died on July 30 of this year.
