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Long-hidden Ingmar Bergman script to be filmed, and it’s a ‘masterpiece’

Handwritten script Sixty-four minutes with Rebecka, which legendary Swedish filmmaker wrote in his fifties, touches on gay relationships, desire, guilt and mental suffering

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The Ingmar Bergman archives on display in Stockholm. The previously unknown manuscript for Sixty-four minutes with Rebecka was discovered in the archives after Bergman donated them, and is now to be filmed. Photo: AFP

Discovered in Ingmar Bergman’s archive, a previously unknown manuscript about sexual and social revolution in the 1960s is to be turned into a movie, nearly a decade after the Swedish director’s death.

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Sixty-four minutes with Rebecka, written by the legendary filmmaker when he was aged 51, was found in 2002 when Bergman donated his work to an institute in his name, shelved among thousands of letters, completed screenplays and photographs.

“Finding an unknown but finished Ingmar Bergman screenplay would be the equivalent of finding a manuscript by Hemingway or if not Shakespeare,” said Jan Holmberg, head of the Ingmar Berman Foundation.

Known for broaching issues of death, loneliness and religious self-doubt, Bergman portrays the main character Rebecka as an emotionally alienated teacher of deaf mutes, seeking sexual and political liberation during the tumultuous 1960s.

“This is the mature artist at his very best, making one of his masterpieces,” Holmberg said.

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Ingmar Bergman in 1963. The previously unknown film script that's now to be made into a movie was written around this time. Photo: AP
Ingmar Bergman in 1963. The previously unknown film script that's now to be made into a movie was written around this time. Photo: AP
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