The revolutionary cinematic experiment carried out by SF Studios, Gothenburg Film Studios and The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, will screen at the Göteborg Festival.

After ‘This is Cinema!' in 2023 whereby Ruben Östlund directed the audience itself, the ‘Mass Hypnosis’ in 2022 and the ‘Isolated cinema’ experience in 2021 where one film buff was picked to watch a film on a lighthouse island during Covid-restrictions, the Göteborg Film Festival will continue in 2024 to challenge the audience’s relation to cinema viewing.

What happens to film when A.I. takes control will be explored during the festival’s 47th edition, using as a conversational start, the screening of ‘Another Persona’, an A.I.-generated version of Ingmar Bergman’s classic Persona, in which Liv Ullmann will be replaced by Alma Pöysti in the title role of Elisabet Vogler.

The cinematic experiment is being produced by the Göteborg Film Festival in collaboration with SF Studios, Gothenburg Film Studios and The Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

The A.I. generated film will screen only once at Scandinavia’s largest film event in the presence of the legendary Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann and Finland’s Alma Pöysti (Fallen Leaves, Tove).

"The discussion about acting, masks, and authenticity that has made Persona a classic has been urgently reactivated by technological advancements. Not least, the strike in Hollywood has sparked an important debate on production possibilities and labour-market threats in relation to AI,” commented the festival’s artistic director Jonas Holmberg. “We want to add an artistic and existential dimension to the discussion, and we want to do it by engaging with Ingmar Bergman's incomparable film. Another Persona will be a uniquely thought-provoking and quite unsettling cinematic experience,” he said.

"As administers of Bergman's artistry, we at The Ingmar Bergman Foundation and SF Studios think that ‘Another Persona’ is a brilliant project,” added The Ingmar Bergman Foundation CEO Jan Holmberg for whom Bergman’s quote from his 1966 film “every intonation is a lie, every gesture a forgery” is truer than ever.

A.I. from an artistic and social perspective will be further developed in the festivals section: Another Intelligence, with the screening of new films related to the theme, a retrospective of historical AI depictions in film, a programme with AI-generated films, on top of panel discussions.

The Göteborg Film Festival will unspool January 26 to February 4, 2024.