Ingmar Bergman’s Grandson, Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, Has a Movie of His Own

When Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel was 9 years old, he became aware that his grandfather was a world-famous director: the Swedish master Ingmar Bergman.

Filled with pride, he boasted about it to his substitute teacher, but he was soon overwhelmed with shame and decided to never mention it again. “I just felt so bad bragging about it, because I can’t take credit for him being my grandfather,” he said in a recent video interview from Oslo.

Thankfully, Tøndel, 35, can now gloat about his own movie accomplishments. His first feature, “Armand,” in U.S. theaters Friday, won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year and was shortlisted for the best international feature film Oscar, representing Norway.

A tense moral thriller with dashes of magical realism, “Armand” stars Renate Reinsve (of “The Worst Person in the World” fame) as Elisabeth, an actress and mother summoned to her 6-year-old son’s school after the boy is accused of inappropriate behavior.

Elisabet, in turn, is the name of the actress character in Bergman’s intriguing 1966 drama “Persona” (played by Tøndel’s grandmother Liv Ullmann), a coincidence Tøndel attributed to a subconscious connection. Yet Tøndel did consciously include a shot in “Armand” that’s an Easter egg reference to Bergman, he said. He prefers to keep the brief homage a secret so audiences can discover it on their own.