A cabaret troupe accused of obscenity in an unnamed country. A Judge tasked to investigate. Every actor has a role to play. The troupe – Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, and Anders Ek are each brought in, one-by-one, for interrogation, culminating in a pornographic performance. No mask can obscure the perverse drive to humiliate, and the judge finds himself audience for a shocking finale in this ruthless examination of art and audience. Raw, direct, sensuous – THE RITE finds Bergman at his most confrontational in this shocking attack on censorship originally shot for Swedish television.

About this series:

This year marks the centennial of the great writer/director Ingmar Bergman. We will present two selections of his work, one in summer and one in fall. This, the first of the two series, focuses on characters in crises both godly and man-made as seen through the lens of Bergman, perhaps the filmmaker most able to express this “Darkness.”