The film was preserved in the mid-1980’s, from the original nitrate picture negative. A new viewing print was struck in 2004.
The film is made up of out-takes and rushes shot for the Swedish 1953 short För barnens skull, directed by Håkan Bergström and Kaj Halldén, produced by Sandrews and commissioned by the Swedish charity organisation Rädda barnen (Save the Children). In the Santa Brigida material we see Ingrid Bergman arriving at the Brigida nunnery in piazza Farnese in Rome, and repeated takes of her being guided around the premises by the nuns, and helping them to distribute clothes donated to children in need. The scenes were probably shot in the Autumn of 1952, and that it indeed was Rossellini behind the camera is revealed by the clapperboard seen in frame before each take. Approximately 20 meters, or just under one minute, of the Rossellini takes were included in För barnens skull.

The 22-minute För barnens skull was released in October 1953. The film was mostly distributed in schools, but also screened in theatres as part of a campaign to raise money and clothes for children. Apart from the Italian footage, the film included sequences shot in a home for refugee mothers in Berlin, footage of homeless children in Austria and of a children’s village in Israel.

Ingrid Bergman does not mention this film in her autobiography, but we know that she participated in similar projects during the war, like the short film commissioned by the American Red Cross, screened in another section of this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Jon Wengström, Svenska Filminstitutet