The Vocation

The Vocation

Sven Nykvist's missionary father in Africa

1974•30m•9.0/10

Documentary

Ratings

🎬TMDb

9.0/10(1)

Sven Nykvist, best known as Ingmar Bergman cinematographer, made this film as a tribute to his father who was a missionary in Kongo in the early 20th century. The story of his father Gustav Natanael Nykvist is told through his own photos, letters, and films. Director & cinematographer: Sven Nykvist. Narrators in the English dubbed version: Liv Ullmann & Sean Connery. Produced by Ingmar Bergman (Cinematograph AB). Digitally restored in 2022.

Open in PickFlick

Production

Cinematograph AB

Language

SV

Status

Released

Release Date

Trailers & Videos

Cast

Erland Josephson

Erland Josephson

Narrator (voice)

Harriet Andersson

Harriet Andersson

Narrator (voice)

Sean Connery

Sean Connery

Narrator (voice)

Liv Ullmann

Liv Ullmann

Narrator (voice)

Recommended

Face to Face

Face to Face

A psychiatrist temporarily separated from her family begins to experience severe psychological distress while working at a mental hospital and returning to her childhood home. As her professional responsibilities and personal relationships intersect, she undergoes a breakdown that forces her to confront long-suppressed memories and fears. (Note: This entry refers to the 1976 theatrical feature film (approximately 135 minutes), created by condensing and re-editing the four-part Swedish television miniseries originally produced the same year.)

Face to Face

1976

7.2

Joker

Joker

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

Joker

2019

8.1

1917

1917

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.

1917

2019

8.0

Call Me by Your Name

Call Me by Your Name

In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver discover a summer that will alter their lives forever.

Call Me by Your Name

2017

8.1

The Florida Project

The Florida Project

The story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.

The Florida Project

2017

7.4

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction

A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.

Pulp Fiction

1994

8.5

Julieta

Julieta

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.

Julieta

2016

7.0

Extraction

Extraction

A hardened gun-for-hire's latest mission becomes a soul-searching race to survive when he's sent into Bangladesh to rescue a drug lord's kidnapped son.

Extraction

2020

7.3

Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Oppenheimer

2023

8.0

Collateral Beauty

Collateral Beauty

Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.

Collateral Beauty

2016

7.2

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton, a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth, his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate, who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski…

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

2019

7.4

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

8.7

Similar Movies

Afrique-France : le divorce ?

Afrique-France : le divorce ?

At a time when French flags are being burned and French embassies targeted, this documentary delves into the growing disaffection between French-speaking Africa and the former colonial power. Through the voices of African leaders, pan-African activists, and committed young people, the film questions the persistence of a relationship marked by the aftermath of colonization, the opaque agreements of "Françafrique," and a military presence deemed paternalistic.

Afrique-France : le divorce ?

2025

No Other Choice

An undercover documentary film produced and directed by British filmmaker Dominic Brown, about the struggle of the indigenous Sahrawi people of Western Sahara. The documentary covers the current human rights and political situation of the Sahrawi. There are several interviews recorded with human rights victims including an elderly lady who had been attacked in her home the previous day by Moroccan security forces. There is also a focus given to the alleged vested interests of countries in the region, particularly France. The film states that the French Government's close relationship with Morocco, their trade deals and their use of veto over the terms of the UN mission in Western Sahara are major factors.

No Other Choice

2012

The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos

The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos

In the remote and forgotten wilderness of Lake Natron, in northern Tanzania, one of nature's last great mysteries unfolds: the birth, life and death of a million crimson-winged flamingos.

The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos

2008

7.2

Downstream to Kinshasa

Downstream to Kinshasa

For two decades, the victims of the Six-Day War have been fighting in Kisangani for the recognition of this bloody conflict and demanding compensation. Tired of unsuccessful pleas, they have finally decided to voice their claims in Kinshasa, after a long journey on the Congo River.

Downstream to Kinshasa

2020

7.3

Route 4

Route 4

No overview available.

Route 4

2021

8.0

Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara

The film builds up a portrait of a great Sudanese film-maker, Gadalla Gubara. At eighty-seven, he is one of the pioneers of cinema in Africa. He has recently lost his sight but still continues to film life in Sudan as no one before him. Through his oeuvre, Gadalla reveals to us a Sudan both mysterious and misunderstood. Despite censorship and lack of financial support over sixty years, he has produced cinema that is independent and unique in a country where freedom of expression is a rare luxury.

Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara

2008

Saved by the Lioness

Saved by the Lioness

Nature documentary about a young wildebeest in the wilderness of Africa. The gnu calf strays from the herd and comes upon a lioness that kidnaps it. Instinctively, it treats the lion like its mother. And miraculously enough, the lioness does not see the calf as its prey. Like a true Survivor, the calf manages to escape from the lion's den and find its way back to its real mother.

Saved by the Lioness

2009

4.2

Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson

As if they were showing their film to a few friends in their home, the Johnsons describe their trip across the world, which begins in the South Pacific islands of Hawaii, Samoa, Australia, the Solomons (where they seek and find cannibals), and New Hebrides. Thence on to Africa via the Indian Ocean, Suez Canal, North Africa, and the Nile River to lion country in Tanganyika. (They are briefly joined in Khartum by George Eastman and Dr. Al Kayser.) Taking a safari in the Congo, the Johnsons see animals and pygmies, and travel back to Uganda, British East Africa, and Kenya.

Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson

1930

6.0

Burnt Earth

Burnt Earth

A visual travel diary on the expedition led by Brondeel in 1934. This expedition to Belgian Congo, by truck, became a testimony to the social conditions of Africans during the colonial era.

Burnt Earth

1934

Kongoveteranerna

Over 6,000 men served and 19 fell in the Congo Battalion (1960-64), Sweden's most dramatic and contentious UN operation. Many of the participants have borne the experience as a lifelong, well-hidden trauma. A visit to the Congo after fifty years causes some of them to finally open up and tell the things that they haven't even been able to say to their closest family.

Kongoveteranerna

2014

Mandela

Mandela

A documentary that chronicles the life of South African leader Nelson Mandela. Mandela is probably best known for his 27 years of imprisonment, and for bringing an end to apartheid. But this film also sheds light on the little-known early period of Mandela's life.

Mandela

1996

6.1

Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within

Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within

The story behind the Uganda-based YouTube dance sensations who have endured devastating personal loss from famine and war, and use the power of dance and song to overcome hardship.

Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within

2025

6.3