SVT & Miso Film Pact for Faithless TV Series

SVT has partnered with the Fremantle company Miso Film to co-produce a TV adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Faithless.

A six-part drama series, Faithless will explore the relationship between passion and love through an erotic triangle that sees David fall in love with his best friend Mark’s wife, Marianne. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (The Snowman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Let the Right One In) is directing the series from a script penned by Norway’s Sara Johnsen (July 22, The Occupation, Winter Kiss).

The Faithless TV series was unveiled at the annual Bergman Week on Fårö island.

Anna Croneman, head of drama at SVT, said: “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.”

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.’ 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.”

Johnsen commented: “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 at Miso Film, commented: “I clearly remember Liv Ullmann’s adaptation 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.”