7:00 - THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE
Sjöström

A drunk relives the life he led before drink ruined him. Sjöström constructs this simple folktale from a brilliant array of flashbacks & eerie special-effects. Shot mainly indoors, with a fine performance by the director himself, this is considered by many to be his best Swedish film. It is also one of the landmarks of the silent era’s golden period of Scandinavian cinema, & a key influence on Ingmar Bergman, who pays specific homage to it in Wild Strawberries, starring Sjöström.

35mm print courtesy of NFSA.

8:55 - SIR ARNE’S TREASURE
Joris Ivens & Marceline Loridan (1968) 113 mins

Stiller’s primordial, ghostly & truly elemental tale of three 16th century Scottish mercenaries who are cursed after stealing the treasure of the local vicar is one of the crowning works of Scandinavian cinema’s greatest decade. Co-written by Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf.

Followed by

Thomas Graal’s Best Film
Mauritz Stiller (1917) 59 mins

A scriptwriter (Victor Sjöström) suffering from writer’s block invents a story about his secretary (Karen Molander) with whom he is infatuated. Stiller’s highly playful film features a structural complexity (fantasies, flashbacks, imagined events) rare in pre-’20s cinema.

Prints courtesy of NFSA.