May 23, 2006, 14:42 GMT
Stockholm - An English version of what has been touted as 'the world's largest Ingmar Bergman website' in honour of the famed Swedish director premiered Tuesday.
The website Ingmar Bergman Face to Face (www.ingmarbergman.se) offers visitors access to thousands of photos, video clips and texts on - and by - the famed Swedish director.
The website premiered in Swedish last September, and the amount of material is comprehensive.
While some links and pages still have to be fleshed out, the material available in English should keep most visitors busy for hours.
Website editors Jon Asp and Anna Hakansson said the English version 'comprises just over half of the original Swedish material.'
It includes references to Bergman's work as a director for the silver screen as well as the stage, and as a scriptwriter and author.
In 2001, the 87-year-old director donated his archives to the Swedish Film Institute.
The initial gift of 45 boxes contained manuscripts, notebooks, plot summaries, sketches, photos as well as behind-the-scenes footage from 18 Bergman films.
Along with Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Swedish movie company Svensk Filmindustri and public broadcaster SvT, the film institute created the Ingmar Bergman Foundation which in turn set up the website.
Bergman has retired to Faro, a tiny island just off the northern tip of the Swedish Baltic Sea island Gotland.
He used the island, known for its stark, stony landscape as a setting for six films.
Hollywood director Ang Lee is slated to visit Faro during the annual Bergman week in early July.
Lee, who won an Academy Award for Brokeback Mountain, was to introduce the screening of his film The Ice Storm, and talk about his favourite Bergman film, Wild Strawberries.
The Taiwan-born director has described himself as 'a huge Bergman fan.'
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