The Sacrifice (1986 film)

Last updated

The Sacrifice
Sacrificebritish1.jpg
British re-issue film poster
Swedish Offret
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Written byAndrei Tarkovsky
Produced byAnna-Lena Wibom
Starring Erland Josephson
Susan Fleetwood
Allan Edwall
Guðrún S. Gísladóttir
Sven Wollter
Valérie Mairesse
Filippa Franzen
Tommy Kjellqvist
Cinematography Sven Nykvist
Edited byAndrei Tarkovsky
Michał Leszczyłowski
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach
Watazumido-Shuso
Distributed by Sandrew (Swedish theatrical)
Release dates
  • 9 May 1986 (1986-05-09)(Sweden)
  • 14 May 1986 (1986-05-14)(France)
[1]
Running time
142 minutes [2]
Countries
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom
  • France [1]
LanguagesSwedish
English
French
Box office$300,653 (USA)

The Sacrifice (Swedish : Offret) is a 1986 drama film written and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Starring Erland Josephson, the film was produced by the Swedish Film Institute. Many of the crew were alumni of Ingmar Bergman's films.

Contents

The Sacrifice centers on a middle-aged intellectual who attempts to bargain with God to stop an impending nuclear holocaust. The film combines pagan and Christian religious themes; Tarkovsky called it a "parable". [3]

The Sacrifice was Tarkovsky's third film as a Soviet expatriate, after Nostalghia and the documentary Voyage in Time , and he died shortly after its completion. He was diagnosed with cancer after making the film, and by 1986 was unable to attend its presentation at the Cannes Film Festival due to his illness. Like 1972's Solaris , it won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

Alexander is an actor who gave up the stage to work as a journalist, critic and lecturer on aesthetics. He lives in a beautiful house with his actress wife Adelaide, stepdaughter Marta, and young son, "Little Man", who is temporarily mute due to a throat operation. Alexander and Little Man plant a tree by the seaside, when Alexander's friend Otto, a part-time postman, delivers a birthday card to him. When Otto asks, Alexander says his relationship with God is "nonexistent". After Otto leaves, Adelaide and Victor, a medical doctor and a close family friend who performed Little Man's operation, arrive and offer to take Alexander and Little Man home in Victor's car, but Alexander prefers to stay behind and talk to his son. In his monologue, he first recounts how he and Adelaide found their house near the sea by accident, and how they fell in love with it and its surroundings, but then enters a bitter tirade against the state of modern man. As Tarkovsky wrote, Alexander is weary of "the pressures of change, the discord in his family, and his instinctive sense of the threat posed by the relentless march of technology"; in fact, he has "grown to hate the emptiness of human speech". [4]

The family, Victor, and Otto gather at Alexander's house for the celebration. Their maid Maria leaves, while nurse-maid Julia stays to help with the dinner. People comment on Maria's odd behavior. The guests chat inside the house, where Otto reveals that he is a student of paranormal phenomena, a collector of "inexplicable but true incidents." Just when dinner is almost ready, the rumbling noise of low-flying jet fighters interrupts them, and soon after, as Alexander enters, a news program announces the beginning of what appears to be World War III, and possibly nuclear holocaust. His wife has a complete nervous breakdown. In despair, Alexander vows to God to renounce all he loves, even Little Man, if this may be undone. Otto advises him to slip away and lie with Maria, who Otto tells him is a witch "in the best possible sense".

Alexander takes a pistol from Victor's medical bag, leaves a note in his room, escapes the house, and rides Otto's bike to Maria's house. He tells her the story of when he fixed up and brought order to his mother's garden, only to find that it lost all its beauty when he did so. She is bewildered when he makes his advances, but when he puts the gun to his temple ("Don't kill us, Maria"), at which point the jet fighters' rumblings return, she soothes him and they make love while floating above her bed, though Alexander's reaction is ambiguous.

When he wakes the next morning, in his own bed, everything seems normal. Nevertheless, Alexander sets forth to give up all he loves and possesses. He tricks the family members and friends into going for a walk, and sets fire to their house while they are away. As the group rushes back, alarmed by the fire, Alexander confesses that he set it, and runs around wildly. Maria, who until then was not seen that morning, appears; Alexander tries to approach her, but is restrained by others. Without explanation, an ambulance appears, and two paramedics chase Alexander, who appears to have lost control of himself, and drive off with him. Maria begins to bicycle away, but stops to observe Little Man watering the tree he and Alexander planted the day before. [n 1] As Maria leaves, the "mute" Little Man, lying at the foot of the tree, speaks his only line, which quotes the opening of the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word. [6] Why is that, Papa?"

Cast

Production

Pre-production

The Sacrifice originated as a screenplay called The Witch, which preserved the element of a middle-aged protagonist spending the night with a reputed witch. But in this story, his cancer was miraculously cured, and he ran away with the woman. [4] [n 2] In March 1982, Tarkovsky wrote in his journal that he considered this ending "weak", as the happy ending was unchallenged. [7] He wanted personal favorite and frequent collaborator Anatoly Solonitsyn to star in this picture, as was also his intention for Nostalghia , [8] but when Solonitsyn died from cancer in 1982, the director rewrote the screenplay into what became The Sacrifice and also filmed Nostalghia with Oleg Yankovsky as the lead. [9]

Tarkovsky considered The Sacrifice different from his earlier films because, while his recent films had been "impressionistic in structure", in this case he not only "aimed...to develop [its] episodes in the light of my own experience and of the rules of dramatic structure", but also to "[build] the picture into a poetic whole in which all the episodes were harmoniously linked", and because of this, it "took on the form of a poetic parable". [4] [n 3]

At the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, Tarkovsky was invited to film in Sweden, as he was a longtime friend of Anna-Lena Wibom of the Swedish Film Institute. He decided to film The Sacrifice with Erland Josephson, who was best known for his work with Ingmar Bergman, [n 4] and whom Tarkovsky had directed in Nostalghia. [n 5] Cinematographer Sven Nykvist, a friend of Josephson and frequent collaborator with Bergman, [n 6] was asked to join the production. Despite a contemporaneous offer to shoot Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa , Nykvist later said it was "not a difficult choice", and like Josephson, he became a co-producer when he invested his fees back into the film. [12] Production designer Anna Asp, who worked on Bergman's Autumn Sonata and After the Rehearsal and had won an Academy Award for Fanny and Alexander , [13] also joined the project, as well as Daniel Bergman, one of Ingmar's children, who worked as a camera assistant. [n 7] Many critics commented on The Sacrifice in the context of Bergman's work. [n 8]

Filming

While often [15] [16] [17] erroneously claimed to have been shot on Fårö, [n 9] The Sacrifice was actually filmed at Närsholmen on the nearby island of Gotland; the Swedish military denied Tarkovsky access to Fårö. [19] [20]

Alexander's house, built for the production, was to be burned for the climactic scene, in which Alexander burns it and his possessions. The shot was very difficult to achieve, and the first failed attempt was, according to Tarkovsky, the only problem during shooting. Despite Nykvist's protest, only one camera was used, and while shooting the burning house, the camera jammed and the footage was thus ruined. [12] [n 10]

The scene had to be reshot, requiring a very costly reconstruction of the house in two weeks. This time, two cameras were set up on tracks, running parallel to each other. The footage in the final version of the film is the second take, which lasts six minutes (and ends abruptly because the camera had run through an entire reel). The cast and crew broke down in tears after the take was completed. [4] [21]

Music

The film opens and closes with the aria "Erbarme dich, mein Gott" ("Have mercy, my God") from Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion . [22] The soundtrack also features shakuhachi recordings by Watazumi Doso. [23]

Post-production

Tarkovsky and Nykvist performed significant amounts of color reduction on select scenes. According to Nykvist, almost 60% of the color was removed from them. [n 11]

Reception

Critical response

Since its release, reviewers have responded positively to the film; the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 86%, based on 43 reviews with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Formally impressive, visually accomplished, and narratively rewarding, The Sacrifice places a fittingly solid capstone on a brilliant filmmaking career". [24]

In 1995, the Vatican compiled a list of 45 "great films", separated into the categories of Religion, Values, and Art, to recognize the centennial of cinema. The Sacrifice was included in the first category, as was Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev . [25]

Critics have commented on The Sacrifice's religious ambiguities. Dennis Lim wrote that it is "not exactly a simple allegory of Christian atonement and self-sacrifice". [26] Catholic film critic Steven Greydanus contrasts the film's "dialectic of Christian and pagan ideas" with Andrei Rublev , writing that, while Rublev "[rejects] the advances of an alluring pagan witch as incompatible with Christian love", The Sacrifice "juxtaposes" both sensibilities. [27] Andrew Petiprin highlights the difficulty of faith in his review. [28]

Awards and nominations

The film won Tarkovsky his second Grand Prix, after Solaris , his third FIPRESCI Prize at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival, and his third Palme D'Or nomination. [29] [n 12] [n 13] The Sacrifice also won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. [31] [n 14] At the 22nd Guldbagge Awards, the film won the awards for Best Film and Best Actor (Erland Josephson). [32] In 1988, it won the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film. [33] The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 59th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. [34]

See also

Notes

  1. 'In the opening shot, before Otto meets them, Alexander tells Little Man the legend of Ioann Kolov, pupil of an Orthodox monk named Pamve, who was ordered by his master to climb a mountain every day, to water a dead tree he had planted, until the tree came back to life, which, after three years, it did. [5]
  2. It is also worth noting that an idea that appears in Tarkovsky's diaries as early as 1970, which he titled Two Saw the Fox, possibly contains elements of what became The Witch, and by extension, The Sacrifice. An entry from April 1980, during a trip to Italy concerning negotiations for Nostalghia, poses an idea for an ending in which a character commits suicide after a world leader makes a televised speech on the outbreak of war, which turns out to merely be a scene from a movie. [7]
  3. He also drew a comparison between the Nostalghia character Domenico, who Josephson played, and Alexander, because both "carry the mark of sacrifice" and make offerings of themselves, although Domenico's act (self-immolation in the Piazza del Campidoglio) "produces no tangible results". [4]
  4. Josephson, who met Bergman in 1939, began working with him in the mid-1940s at the Helsingborg City Theatre. [10] Although he would not have a major part in a Bergman film until 1968's Hour of the Wolf , he would become the most frequent male actor in the director's films from that point forward; Max von Sydow's final Bergman collaboration was 1971's The Touch , and Gunnar Björnstrand only had a few appearances after Shame before his death in 1986.
  5. Though Natalya Bondarchuk was eventually cast in the role, recurring Bergman actor Bibi Andersson, who met Tarkovsky in June 1970, was at one point considered for Hari in Solaris , and around that time, Tarkovsky thought of casting her as the mother in what became The Mirror . [11]
  6. Nykvist served as cinematographer for all of Bergman's films from The Virgin Spring through Fanny and Alexander , as well as 1953's Sawdust and Tinsel .
  7. Daniel later became a director in his own right, of films like Sunday's Children .
  8. In a June 1986 interview, Tarkovsky denied a Bergman influence, saying that "for [him], God is not a mute". He questioned how well critics who made the connection understood Bergman and existentialism, adding, "Bergman is closer to Kierkegaard than to problems of religion". [14]
  9. Fårö was Bergman's home for much of his life, and several of his films were shot there. [18]
  10. This disaster is recorded in the documentary Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, by Sacrifice co-editor Michał Leszczyłowski, and in One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich , a 1999 French television documentary by Chris Marker.
  11. Nykvist recalled that his work on color reduction prompted a conversation with Akira Kurosawa in the 1990s. [12]
  12. Solaris won the Grand Prix, Andrei Rublev and Nostalghia received FIPRESCI Prizes, and Solaris and Nostalghia had received Palme D'Or nominations. [29]
  13. In his diaries, Tarkovsky, who did not attend the festival due to his health, commented on how the film that won the latter award, The Mission , had apparently been unfinished, and yet had won the festival's top honor. Nevertheless, he wrote that "those who want to give their attention to my films are the greatest prize". [30]
  14. As his previous films, Stalker and Nostalghia, had received the prize in their respective years of competition, Tarkovsky is the only director to have won it three times. [31]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrei Tarkovsky</span> Russian filmmaker (1932–1986)

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Russian film director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in cinema history, Tarkovsky's films explore spiritual and metaphysical themes, and are noted for their slow pacing and long takes, dreamlike visual imagery, and preoccupation with nature and memory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ingmar Bergman</span> Swedish director and screenwriter (1918–2007)

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish filmmaker and theatre director. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential screenwriters and film directors of all time, his films have been described as "profoundly personal meditations into the myriad struggles facing the psyche and the soul". Some of his most acclaimed works include The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), Persona (1966), and Fanny and Alexander (1982); these four films were included in the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time. Bergman was also ranked No. 8 on the magazine's 2002 "Greatest Directors of All Time" list.

<i>Fanny and Alexander</i> 1982 Swedish drama film by Ingmar Bergman

Fanny and Alexander is a 1982 period drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The plot focuses on two siblings and their large family in Uppsala, Sweden during the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the death of the children's father, their mother remarries a prominent bishop who becomes abusive towards Alexander for his vivid imagination.

<i>Ivans Childhood</i> 1962 film by Andrei Tarkovsky

Ivan's Childhood, sometimes released as My Name Is Ivan in the US, is a 1962 Soviet war drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Co-written by Mikhail Papava, Andrei Konchalovsky and an uncredited Tarkovsky, it is based on Vladimir Bogomolov's 1957 short story "Ivan". The film features child actor Nikolai Burlyayev along with Valentin Zubkov, Evgeny Zharikov, Stepan Krylov, Nikolai Grinko, and Tarkovsky's wife Irma Raush.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erland Josephson</span> Swedish actor (1923–2012)

Erland Josephson was a Swedish actor and author. He was best known by international audiences for his work in films directed by Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky and Theodoros Angelopoulos.

<i>Andrei Rublev</i> (film) 1966 film by Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Rublev is a 1966 Soviet biographical historical drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky who co-wrote it with Andrei Konchalovsky. The film was re-edited from the 1966 film titled The Passion According to Andrei by Tarkovsky which was censored during the first decade of the Brezhnev era in the Soviet Union. The film is loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, a 15th-century Russian icon painter. The film features Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Burlyayev and Tarkovsky's wife Irma Raush. Savva Yamshchikov, a famous Russian restorer and art historian, was a scientific consultant of the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sven Nykvist</span> Swedish cinematographer

Sven Vilhem Nykvist was a Swedish cinematographer. His work is generally noted for its naturalism and simplicity. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest cinematographers of all time. He is best known for his collaboration with director Ingmar Bergman. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Cries and Whispers (1972) and Fanny and Alexander (1982). Nykvist also worked with Bergman on The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1973), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), Face to Face (1978), and Autumn Sonata (1978).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anatoly Solonitsyn</span> Russian actor

Anatoly (Otto) Alekseyevich Solonitsyn was a Soviet actor known for his roles in Andrei Tarkovsky's films. He won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival.

<i>In the Presence of a Clown</i> 1997 Swedish film

In the Presence of a Clown is a television film by Ingmar Bergman, recorded for Swedish television in 1997 with Bergman as a director. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. It tells the story of a professor named Carl, who has been found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to treatment in a mental ward. In the hospital he befriends a man named Osvald, and they attempt to make and promote a film.

<i>Nostalghia</i> 1983 film by Andrei Tarkovsky

Nostalghia is a 1983 Soviet-Italian drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and starring Oleg Yankovsky, Domiziana Giordano, and Erland Josephson. Tarkovsky co-wrote the screenplay with Tonino Guerra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Bergman</span> Swedish film director

Daniel Sebastian Bergman is a Swedish film director. He is the son of Ingmar Bergman and Käbi Laretei.

<i>Voyage in Time</i> 1983 Italian film

Voyage in Time is a 63-minute feature documentary that documents the travels in Italy of the director Andrei Tarkovsky with the script writer Tonino Guerra in preparation for the making of his film Nostalghia. In addition to the preparation of Nostalghia, their conversations cover a wide range of matters, filmmaking or not. Notably, Tarkovsky reveals his filmmaking philosophy and his admiration of films by, among others, Robert Bresson, Jean Vigo, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Sergei Parajanov, and Ingmar Bergman.

<i>Moscow Elegy</i> 1988 film

Moscow Elegy is a 1988 documentary film directed by Alexander Sokurov, about the later life and death of Soviet Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was originally intended to mark the 50th birthday of Tarkovsky in 1982, which would have been before his death. Controversy with Soviet authorities about the film's style and content led to significant delays in the production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Works by Andrei Tarkovsky</span>

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) was a Soviet filmmaker who is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time. His films are considered Romanticist and are often described as "slow cinema", with the average shot-length in his final three films being over a minute. In his thirty-year career, Tarkovsky directed several student films and seven feature films, co-directed a documentary, and wrote numerous screenplays. He also directed a stage play and wrote a book.

One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich is a 2000 French documentary film directed by Chris Marker, about and an homage to the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was an episode of the French documentary film series Cinéastes de notre temps, which in over ninety episodes since 1966 concentrates on individual film directors, film people and film movements. The title of the film is a play on the title of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

<i>Solaris</i> (1972 film) 1972 science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

Solaris is a 1972 Soviet science fiction drama film based on Stanisław Lem's 1961 novel of the same title. The film was co-written and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, and stars Donatas Banionis and Natalya Bondarchuk. The electronic music score was performed by Eduard Artemyev and features a composition by J.S. Bach as its main theme. The plot centers on a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris, where a scientific mission has stalled because the skeleton crew of three scientists have fallen into emotional crises. Psychologist Kris Kelvin (Banionis) travels to the station to evaluate the situation, only to encounter the same mysterious phenomena as the others.

The 22nd Guldbagge Awards ceremony, presented by the Swedish Film Institute, honored the best Swedish films of 1986, and took place on 2 February 1987. The Sacrifice directed by Andrei Tarkovsky was presented with the award for Best Film.

Larisa Pavlovna Tarkovskaya was a Soviet film director and actress.

References

  1. 1 2 "Offret = Sacrificatio (1986) Andreï Tarkovski". Bifi.fr. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  2. "The Sacrifice (1986)". IMDb . Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  3. Tarkovsky, Andrei (1989). Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. Translated by Hunter-Blair, Kitty. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. p. 218. ISBN   9780292776241.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Tarkovsky, Andrei (1989). Sculpting in Time. University of Texas Press. p. 222. ISBN   978-0-292-77624-1.
  5. Green, Peter. "Tarkovsky's Poetic Cinema". andreitarkovski.org. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  6. Jn 1:1
  7. 1 2 Tarkovsky, Andrei. "Andrei Tarkovsky's Martyrolog on...The Witch". nostalghia.com. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  8. Thompson, Lang. "Nostalghia" . Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  9. Parkinson, David. "Foreign Classics: Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice - To Sleep, Perchance to Dream?". Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  10. Ingmar Bergman: Reflections on Life, Death, and Love with Erland Josephson. Dir. Stefan Brann. TV4 AB Sweden, 2000.
  11. Tarkovsky, Andrei (1989). Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986. London: Faber and Faber Limited. pp. 5–6, 9. ISBN   978-0571167173.
  12. 1 2 3 Nykvist, Sven; Forslund, Bengt (1997). Vördnad för ljuset ("In Reverence of Light"). Albert Bonniers Publishing Company. pp. 181–88. ISBN   91-0-056316-1 . Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  13. "The 56th Academy Awards". Oscars. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  14. de Brantes, Charles. "La foi est la seule chose qui puisse sauver l'homme". La France Catholique. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
  15. Levy, Emanuel. "Sacrifice, The (1986): Tarkovsky's Masterpiece". emanuellevy.com. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  16. Ebert, Roger. "The Sacrifice". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  17. Howe, Desson. "'Sacrifice' (PG)". The Washington Post. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  18. Pergament, Danielle (7 October 2007). "The Enchanted Island That Bergman Called Home". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  19. "Ingmar Bergman.com: Andrei Tarkovsky". ingmarbergman.se. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 11 July 2011.
  20. "Vintersång och toner till minne av Tarkovskij" [Winter songs in the memory of Tarkovskij]. www.sverigesradio.se. Sveriges Radio. 29 December 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  21. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Dir. Michal Leszczylowski. Perf. Brian Cox, Erland Josephson and Andrey Tarkovskiy. Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), 1988.
  22. Bosman, Frank G. (2014). "Tarkovsky's Sacrifice: Between Nietzsche and Christ". In Houtman, Alberdina; Poorthuis, Marcel; Schwartz, Joshua; Turner, Yossi (eds.). The Actuality of Sacrifice: Past and Present. Brill. p. 454. ISBN   978-90-04-28423-4.
  23. Impett, Jonathan (2019). Routledge Handbook to Luigi Nono and Musical Thought. Routledge. ISBN   978-0-429-94085-9.
  24. "Offret (The Sacrifice) (1986)". Rotten Tomatoes . Penske Business Media . Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  25. "Vatican Best Films List". United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  26. Lim, Dennis (10 July 2011). "A Second Look: Andrei Tarkovsky's 'The Sacrifice'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  27. Greydanus, Steven. "The Sacrifice (1986)". Decent Films. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  28. Petiprin, Andrew. "The Sacrifice (1986)". Catholic World Report. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  29. 1 2 "Andrei Tarkovski". Cannes Film Festival . Retrieved 7 October 2014.
  30. Tarkovsky, Andrei. "Andrei Tarkovsky's Martyrolog on... The Sacrifice". nostalghia.com. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  31. 1 2 Vaccaro, Pierre (May 2008). "Jury Œcuménique - 34ème année" (PDF) (in French). Jury Œcuménique. p. 4. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  32. "Offret (1986)". Swedish Film Institute. 14 March 2014.
  33. "Foreign Language Film in 1988". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
  34. Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences