Raven's End (Kvarteret Korpen) by Bo Widerberg

The Swedish New Wave

For the 2025 edition, FIKA(S) and the Cinémathèque Québécoise are highlighting Swedish cinema from the 1960s with a selection of films by Bo Widerberg, Jan Troell, and Vilgot Sjöman. While Ingmar Bergman has reigned supreme over the Swedish cinematic landscape since the end of World War II, this new generation of filmmakers, inspired by the French New Wave and American independent cinema, is challenging the conventions of representation and turning towards a decidedly social cinema.

Raven's End (Kvarteret Korpen) by Bo Widerberg Sweden, 1963, 101 min num., Subtitled in French

The son of an alcoholic father and a mother struggling to keep the household afloat by doing housework, a young man tries to escape his working-class condition through writing. In the background of this family chronicle, we glimpse the everyday life of a working-class neighborhood in Malmö during the 1930s, marked by hope and adversity. This second feature film by Bo Widerberg begins a series of films imbued with poetic realism, in which the young director becomes the spokesperson for the social struggles that have shaped Sweden throughout different periods of its history.