28.10.25, 20:30, The Seventh Seal (1957)

‘I call out to him in the darkness, but it's as if no one is listening.’ After his crusade through a landscape ravaged by the plague, Knight Antonius Block (played by Max von Sydow) comes face to face with death. He proposes that they play a game of chess together, not only to prolong his life, but also to give him the opportunity to have a conversation about faith, doubt, life, death and existence.

What follows is Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's most iconic existential drama, full of expressive imagery with rich symbolism and poetic, timeless reflections on the human condition. Profound questions such as “How can we believe in faith if we don't believe in ourselves?” are interspersed with light-hearted, almost naive scenes from the lives of Jof and Mia, a travelling comedian couple with a child. ‘And when the seventh seal was broken, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.’ That silence echoes throughout the film — not as an answer, but as an invitation to keep asking questions.

This screening will be introduced by Professor of Swedish Linguistics Andreas Widoff.