Victor Sjöström

Victor Sjöström (1879-1960) is, internationally speaking, the most outstanding name i Swedish cinema before Ingmar Bergman. Sjöström's pioneering days were from 1913 to 1927 in the era of the silent film when both in Sweden and in America he directed a series of films that rank today among the classics in the history of the motion picture. After a long career as actor and stage director he entered the film world in 1912, and in 1913 signed his first masterpiece "Ingeborg Holm", named by the critics as "the first realistic film in the world". International breakthrough came at the latter end of the 1910 decade with "Terje Vigen" and "The Outlaw and His Wife". These two pictures were followed by a series of notable screen adaptions of the works of Selma Lagerlöf. In 1923 Sjöström was invited to America where he was hailed by Chaplin, among others, as "the greatest director in the world. There is no doubt that Sjöström, side by side with Chaplin, Lubitsch and Stroheim, came to be recognized as one of the leading directors of serious American films of the 1920's. With the advent of the talkies he returned to Sweden and spent the rest of his professional life as an actor, in the theatre and on the screen. His last screen appearance was in 1957 as the old professor in "Wild Strawberries" written expressly by Ingmar Bergman as a tribute to his illustrious predecessor. (oficjalny tekst dystrybutora)