The aim of the project is to study how films have dealt with modern Swedish history, with a particular focus on the gradual development of the welfare state from the 1930s to the early 1980s. The major question is: how did Swedish films handle ideological, social, cultural, and economic debate in Sweden? The project involves four experienced film scholars, each offering a distinct emphasis. The first part examines how Ingmar Bergman's films related to the social democratic post-war society within which they were created. The second part investigates the relations between politics and film during the Second World War. The third part aims to study the importance of film for the national and cultural identity of Swedish-Americans, and to analyse how Swedish-Americans were represented in Swedish films. The guiding hypothesis of the final part is that children's films in Sweden were originally created as a social resource in order to fulfil educational, that is, political ends. The general theory behind the project as a whole, is that film, through its popular appeal and general representativity, constitutes an important source for the understanding of our history. By studying films and their reception, one can draw conclusions about how the welfare state was understood by people in different layers of social organisation, both regarding the creators of the films themselves (the state, corporate society, private individuals), and the general public ("the people", "the press").