Tomas Alfredson & Sara Johnsen On Adapting Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Faithless’ & Why TV Is A Much “Freer Art Form” For Creatives – London TV Screenings
29.02.2024 - 09:27
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson, now best known as the director behind beautiful, taut features like Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, wrote to Swedish screen legend Ingmar Bergman sometime in the early 2000s with an idea. Bergman’s response was characteristically colorful.
“What the hell is this? What do you mean?” Bergman told Alfredson.
Alfredson had told the Persona filmmaker that he wanted to remake Faithless, the 2000 feature Bergman had written about an imaginary woman who recollects her painful experience of adultery to an aging filmmaker. The pic played in competition that year in Cannes and was directed by Bergman’s ex-wife, actress Liv Ullmann.
“This was long before everyone was producing remakes, so it was a very unusual question, especially for Bergman,” Alfredson said.
Fast forward to February 2024 and Alfredson is deep into an edit of a contemporary TV adaptation of Faithless he has directed from scripts penned by Norwegian writer Sara Johnsen (July 22).
The six-episode drama series unravels across two time periods. In the present-day storyline, the renowned director David Howard, 73, is reunited with his former great love, actress Marianne Vogler, 75. Forty years prior, in the main story, a young David and Marianne fall in love and embark on a passionate love affair they must keep a secret, as Marianne is married to David’s best friend, Markus Vogler.
The series is fronted by Jesper Christensen (Into the Darkness) and Lena Endre, who play the older couple while Gustav Lindh (Queen of Hearts) and Frida Gustavsson (Vikings, The Witcher) animate their younger versions. Endre returns to the Faithless story after starring in the original Bergman edition. Also starring is