SwedishNews

Bergman exhibition―but not in Sweden. Strong job growth predicted. No more paid coffee breaks. Moms not wanted. Mormor’s fruktsoppa or something like it.  

• Strong job growth predicted
  The Swedish economy continues to boom, with increasing opportunities for unemployed to find jobs. During 2011 employment is expected to increase by 65,000 people. The largest increase of jobs occurs in the computer industry, but the engineering and construction industries also see a rise in job growth. Health services are deficient in personnel, according to the Public Employment Agency.

• No more paid coffee breaks
  Last year Alimak Hek, a company that produces elevators, made an extra 100 million SEK ($15,538,786.56), and now they want to save money by taking away the paid coffee breaks for their 246 employees at the factory in Skellefteå. “We must reduce our expenses if we don’t want to move to countries where production is cheaper,” says managing director Rolf J. Persson. However, employees are critical. “Threatening to move the production abroad is not OK,” says Eric Lindqvist, chairman of the trade union.

• Bergman exhibition―but not in Sweden
  The first big Ingmar Bergman exhibition has opened―in Berlin. And it may not even come to Sweden, as Swedish museums haven’t shown much interest. “I’m not surprised,” says Jan Holmberg, executive manager and curator of the Bergmanstiftelsen (Bergman Archives). “Ingmar Bergman has always been more popular abroad than in Sweden.” A major film festival and talks with Bergman actors like Liv Ullman, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom are incorporated as well. The exhibition opened recently at the Film Museum at Potsdamer Platz. Ingmar Bergman often said in interviews that he threw everything away, but in reality he collected most things and in 2002 he donated his documents to the newly founded Bergmanstiftelsen. When Nils Warnecke from the Film Museum in Berlin opened the exhibition he told the audience that he had seen all the documents five or six years ago. Everything―scripts and directorial notes and posters―were all kept behind a locked door in the Svenska Filminstitutet's basement. “Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to do this exhibition,” said Warnecke. Holmberg explains that Bergmanstiftelsen is careful with lending out their material. “We’ve been waiting for the right time, the right opportunity. The material is very fragile. But I feel safe here. They are very enthusiastic and of course also enormous Bergman fans,” he says about Warnecke and Kristina Jaspers, the curators. The exhibition will run through the end of May. The following museums in Sweden have turned down the exhibition: Moderna Museet, Kulturhuset, and Nordiska Museet. “Now that the exhibition has opened in Berlin they’re showing a faint interest,” explains Jan Holmberg.
  www.filmmuseum-berlin.de