Playlist favorite, director Susanne Bier, is set to direct a four part mini-series biopic about the life of legendary film director Ingmar Bergman.
The project, being developed by Sveriges Television, is budgeted at $12 million dollars and is one of the most expensive productions they’ve undertaken to date. The series is being penned by author Henning Mankell, who perhaps not coincidentally, is married to Bergman’s daughter Eva. He’s already finished the first two episodes, and they’ve been named after films by the late auteur: “Frenzy” and “Sawdust & Tinsel.” However, we’ll have to wait a while for this one. Shooting will begin in the fall of 2011, with the feature arriving first in the spring of 2012 and mini-series arriving at Christmas 2012. The holiday season release is not surprising as Bergman’s incredibly great “Fanny & Alexander” has long been a staple of Swedish television at Christmas time.
As for Bier, her latest film, “The Revenge,” appears to be another tough drama from the director. We pulled the synopsis from the Zentropa website and as they only had the synopsis in Swedish, we ran it through the Google translator but most of the details seem to bear out:
The film draws tracks from the desolate refugee camps in Africa to the General halvgrå grind in a Danish provincial town. Two Danish families intersect, and an unusual and dangerous friendship proposes sprouts.
But loneliness, helplessness and sadness lurking – and soon becomes friendly with a dangerous alliance, and a thrilling race with their lives.
Ok. Parse from that what you will. We imagine the film will be in consideration for Cannes, and it already has an August 26, 2010 release date penciled in for those of you in Europe.
Bier will have some time on her hands before she buckles down on the Bergman project. Will she tackle the rom-com “Which Brings Me To You” that was rumored last fall before then? We’ll have to wait and see, but we would imagine it might be a good palate cleanser between two heavy projects
