Today, SVT, in partnership with Miso Film announced that they are set to co-produce a TV adaption of Ingmar Bergman’s Faithless. Acclaimed Swedish director, Tomas Alfredson (The Snowman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Let the Right One In), is responsible for directing all six episodes and Norwegian, award-winning Sara Johnsen (July 22, The Occupation, Winter Kiss) writes the script. The project was revealed Saturday, 2 July at the annual Bergman Week on Fårö island, where Sara Johnsen, Tomas Alfredson and SVT’s Head of Drama, Anna Croneman discussed the series.
Faithless is a 6×45 drama series, which explores the relationship between passion and love through an erotic triangle. David falls in love with his best friend Mark’s wife, the beautiful Marianne. David and Marianne’s love affair has painful consequences for two families. The characters are driven by lust, jealousy, betrayal and love.
“To bring together two such strong creatives as Sara Johnsen and Tomas Alfredson, with a unique and at the same time timeless text by Ingmar Bergman is extremely exciting. It is also an example of the ambitious projects like us at SVT Drama, and Public Service in general, will need to protect in the future”, said Anna Croneman, Head of Drama at SVT.
Director, Tomas Alfredson added, “Sometime during the winter of 2001, I contacted Ingmar Bergman and asked if I could reinterpret his story. Initially he said it sounded like “a drunken idea”. But the longer we talked about it, he thought it sounded both “terribly exciting” and “really sh*tty”.
Tomas continued, “Now it is finally time to make a television series of Ingmar Bergman’s shocking love triangle drama. I have a hard time seeing that I have ever faced a bigger task and promise that I will lift my hat for what has been and roll up my sleeves for what will be.”
Screenwriter, Sara Johnsen said, “It is inspiring to develop, marvel at and expand Bergman’s text, which through complex characters is possessed by forces greater than themselves. Collaborating with Tomas Alfredson makes writing a party and it feels like we’re making the best character-driven TV drama of all time.”
Peter Bose, CEO and producer, Miso Film commented: “I clearly remember Liv Ullmann’s adaption of Ingmar Bergman’s Faithless, who made a great impression when I saw the film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. Faithless is an eternally valid story about love and jealousy, and not least the feelings that are aroused when you fall in love. With Tomas Alfredson’s and Sara Johnsen’s intensive reinterpretation of Faithless, it is as relevant today as when Bergman wrote his original text. Jonas Allen, René Ezra, and I look forward to producing the TV series together with SVT and Anna Croneman, with whom we most recently collaborated with on the Danish series The Investigation.”
Miso Film is behind writer and director Tobias Lindholm’s internationally praised series The Investigation, Scandinavia’s first original Netflix series The Rain, the crime series Those Who Kill and Dicte: Crime Reporter, as well as Christopher Boe’s acclaimed series Warrior and Face to Face and Ole Bornedals 1864 and The Bombardment.
