Bo Widerberg

Already acclaimed as one of the leading novelists of his generation, Widerberg turned to film criticism in the early 1960s. In 1962, he published a collection of essays, "Vision in the Swedish Cinema," which vociferously denounced Swedish film as rarefied and oblivious to everyday, contemporary issues; Ingmar Bergman was singled out as the primary offender. The following year, Widerberg turned from fiery prose to practice, directing his first feature, "The Baby Carriage" (1963). "Raven's End" (1964), an autobiographical film about a young man's struggle to strike out on his own, earned the director the first of three Oscar nominations for Best Foreign-Language Film and was named as one of Sweden's best films by a Stockholm arts publication in 1995.