Swedish Silent Cinema: Victor Sjöström & Mauritz Stiller

January 16–February 28, 2026

This series features a selection of the best films from the Golden Age of Swedish silent cinema, presented in 35mm archival prints and digital restorations, along with an illustrated lecture (free admission) on Victor Sjöström by Jon Wengström, Senior Curator of the Archival Collections at the Swedish Film Institute.

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Mauritz Stiller: Gosta Berling’s Saga, 1924
Victor Seastrom: The Wind, 1928
Victor Sjöström: The Phantom Carriage, 1921
Victor Sjöström: The Outlaw and his Wife, 1918

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Past Films

Erotikon
Mauritz Stiller
Sweden, 1920
Imported 35mm Print
Friday, January 16 7 PM
Introduced by Jon Wengström; Judith Rosenberg on Piano
Erotikon is set entirely in an urban milieu and openly challenges social taboos in the story of a wife simultaneously courting two lovers in a comic portrayal of love and infidelity.
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Jon Wengström’s Lecture on Victor Sjöström
Free admission. Tickets available at the admissions desk beginning at 3 PM.
Saturday, January 17 4 PM
Illustrated Lecture by Jon Wengström
A ninety-minute illustrated lecture with clips, rare shorts, and fragments that put Victor Sjöström and his films into context, as well as sketch out his career both as a director and as an actor.
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The Wings & Ingeborg Holm
Sunday, January 18 1 PM
Introduced by Jon Wengström; Judith Rosenberg on Piano
Ingeborg Holm is one of Sweden’s first social protest films and a masterpiece of prewar cinema. Preceded by queer-themed The Wings, a very free adaptation of Mikaël, a novella by Danish writer Herman Bang.
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The Outlaw and His Wife
Victor Sjöström
Sweden, 1918
Imported 35mm Print
Wednesday, January 21 7 PM
Introduced by Jon Wengström; Judith Rosenberg on Piano
A thief, a young widow, and their love outside the law: “Without a doubt the most beautiful film in the world!” declared French avant-gardist Louis Delluc.
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Sir Arne’s Treasure
Mauritz Stiller
Sweden, 1919
Digital Restoration
Wednesday, January 28 7 PM
Introduced by Linda Haverty Rugg; Judith Rosenberg on Piano
This tinted restoration illuminates the tension between the exquisite attention to textural detail and the ghostly immaterial special effects in some of the most spectacular scenes and images in the history of Swedish silent cinema.
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The Phantom Carriage
Victor Sjöström
Sweden, 1921
Digital Restoration
Sunday, February 1 1 PM
Introduced by Mark Sandberg; Judith Rosenberg on Piano
An alcoholic’s life is changed through love and an encounter with the Grim Reaper in this film of uncanny beauty and inventiveness, which Ingmar Bergman called “the keystone of my cinematographic world.”
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Gösta Berling’s Saga (Parts 1 & 2)
Mauritz Stiller
Sweden, 1924
Digital Restoration
Sunday, February 8 4:30 PM
Introduced by Mark Sandberg
Remembered as the first major performance of nineteen-year-old Greta Garbo as one of Gösta Berling’s love interests, the film caught the eye of Louis B. Mayer, who brought both Mauritz Stiller and Garbo to Hollywood, making Gösta Berling’s Saga Stiller’s final movie in Sweden.
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A Man There Was & The Wind
Sunday, February 15 4 PM
Introduced by Mark Sandberg; Judith Rosenberg on Piano
Set during the Napoleonic Wars, this adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s nationalistic poem is distinguished by stunning land and seascape photography. With the director’s Hollywood epic The Wind, wherein naive Virginia belle Lillian Gish relocates to windswept Texas.
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Wild Strawberries
Ingmar Bergman
Sweden, 1957
Saturday, February 28 4 PM
Introduced by Linda Haverty Rugg
The film that cemented Ingmar Bergman’s international reputation deftly interweaves memory, reality, and dream. As an elderly professor recollecting his life’s failures, “Victor Sjöström gives one of the greatest performances of cinema” (National Film Theatre, London).
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Swedish Silent Cinema: Victor Sjöström & Mauritz Stiller

January 16–February 28, 2026

Victor Sjöström (1879–1960) and Mauritz Stiller (1883–1928), a Finnish director who worked in Sweden, were two of the leading lights of the Swedish Golden Age of silent cinema. Both worked with cinematographers Henrik and Julius Jaenzon to create films that are noted for their distinctive location shooting and naturalist aesthetic. Sjöström, who enjoyed a long career, made significant contributions as a director and an actor. His legacy forms the backbone of the Swedish film tradition that would inspire later filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman, Gustaf Molander, Alf Sjöberg, and Jan Troell. Stiller was a prolific filmmaker but died relatively young.

Both Sjöstrom and Stiller were lured to Hollywood. Sjöstrom, who changed his name to Seastrom, made films in the United States between 1923 and 1930, including The Wind, starring Lillian Gish. Stiller was initially contracted by MGM and then Paramount Pictures, where he made three successful films, but he ran into conflicts with the structure of the studio system and returned to Sweden. He is perhaps best known for discovering Greta Garbo and bringing her to the United States.

This series features a selection of each director’s best films, presented on imported 35mm prints and digital restorations courtesy of the Swedish Film Institute (SFI). Jon Wengström, Senior Curator of the Archival Collections, SFI, will be our guest to launch the series and will present an illustrated lecture on Sjöström.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator

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Film Series Sponsor: Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation

Thanks to Kajsa Hedström, Jon Wengström, Swedish Film Institute; Linda Haverty Rugg, Department of Scandinavian, and Mark Sandberg, Nordic Center, UC Berkeley; and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.