This event brings together Polish and Swedish scholars to rethink the cinemas of Andrzej Wajda and Ingmar Bergman from a different vantage point: not the solitary male genius, but the dense network of women who shaped these works from within.

Moving beyond the myth of authorship, the discussion foregrounds the often invisible creative labour of women—co-workers, editors, producers —whose contributions remain embedded in the films yet rarely fully acknowledged. These figures emerge not only as collaborators but as co-authors of cinematic language, style, and meaning. Bringing this perspective into dialogue with memory studies, the event asks how film itself becomes a site of cultural memory: how women’s work is remembered, forgotten, or archived, and how revisiting these collaborations reshapes our understanding of film history.

To provide background and facilitate engaging discussions we invite participants to read the introductory chapters to the edited volumes Women and Polish Cinema: Reclaiming the Frame (please contact organizers) and Now About All These Women in the Swedish Film Industry (available OA here.)

Małgorzata Radkiewicz is Professor of Film Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In her research and publications, she focuses on women’s creativity in film, photography, and video art. Her three books (2002, 2010, 2022, all in Polish) examine women directors and artists, as well as female audiences. In Modern Women on Cinema (2016), she reconstructs the work of Polish female film critics of the 1920s and 1930s, drawing on original articles and archival materials. Her article on the Polish-Jewish film producer Maria Hirszbein was published in Camera Obscura (2021), and her chapter on Pola Negri appears in Stretching the Archives (2024), a volume on global women’s film heritage. Together with Elżbieta Ostrowska, she co-edited Women and Polish Cinema: Reclaiming the Frame (2026).

Louise Wallenberg is Professor of Fashion Studies at Stockholm University and holds a PhD in Cinema Studies. Her research addresses gender, sexuality, and creative labour in film and fashion. She has written extensively on gendered structures in the Swedish film industry and co-edited Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads, which includes the first in-depth interviews with Katinka Faragó and Måns Reuterswärd, long-time collaborators of Ingmar Bergman. She is also co-editor of Now About All These Women in the Swedish Film Industry, which looks beyond statistics to explore the complex cultural, legal, and political conditions shaping women’s entry into a male-dominated field. The volume examines women’s strategies and efforts to promote change, while demonstrating how their presence has challenged the industry—provoking critical responses and introducing new ways of representing women on screen. Her work connects feminist film scholarship with production studies and industry practice.

The seminar is supported by SOL, Polish Studies, Film Studies, and the CEMES research group on European Cultures of Memory.

Organizers: urszula.chowaniec@slav.lu.se  and anders.marklund@litt.lu.se