In this funny tale of a famous screenwriter struggling to produce a film script, Mauritz Stiller - one of Sweden’s greatest filmmakers - directs another, Victor Sjöström, in the role of Thomas Graal, alongside the incomparable Karin Molander as the unflappable Bessie.

Besieged by writer’s block, screenwriter Thomas Graal can’t think of a single worthwhile idea for his next film. When he scares off his alluring secretary Bessie to boot, he teeters on the brink of desperation. Finally the love-struck ne’er-do-well comes up with an idea worth its salt. He writes a romantic comedy called “The Adventuress” that unites him with the woman of his dreams, and then submits the manuscript on one condition: Bessie must play the starring role!

A delightful first installment - alongside Stiller’s successful follow-up 1917 movie ‘Thomas Graal's Best Child’ - this charming comedy of manners is a tremendous early example of social satire and a brilliant reflection on what was then still a fledgling medium. Giving us a rare and illuminating behind-the-scenes glimpse of the early film industry, the sophistication of Sjöström and Stiller’s work as seen here make strong the claim that, at the time between D.W Griffith’s Birth of a Nation and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, it was the Scandinavians, not the Americans or the Germans, who were arguably cinema’s most pre-eminent filmmakers.

With an introduction by historian David Robinson and live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney.

With thanks to the BFI.

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