An invitation to be a writer-in-residence at the Swedish director’s remote Baltic island house seemed too good to miss. Would some of his genius rub off?
An eerie kind of peace came over me as I sat in my battered Toyota rental car on the quayside at Fårösund. This is the gateway to the Gotland archipelago’s farthest flung outpost, the island of Fårö, better known as Bergman Island since the release of Mia Hansen-Løve’s 2021 film of that name. The Baltic lay as flat as the hundreds of placid lakes you fly over in the little island hopper from Stockholm Bromma airport. It was 10pm on 1 June, and the sky showed no sign of getting dark. The whole scene, including the rocky outcrops down in the bay, felt very … er … Bergmanesque.
I was coming to Fårö on a mission. In January, I had been invited to be writer-in-residence at the Fårö home of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. I had a screenplay to write, having just published my debut novel, Istria Gold. In the depths of a depressing winter, it was easy to say yes to something six months away and on an idyllic Baltic island. After 20 years carrying the Bergman baton as a board member of his brainchild, the European Film Academy (EFA) – including four as chair, and six as deputy to Agnieszka Holland – it was about time I got to know the man a little more. What better way of doing it than an extended stay at his home, on his estate. However, the reality of what the following month would hold began to dawn on me as I drove the last few desolate kilometres to the Bergman homestead. “Where have all the people gone?” I wondered.
