SF Studios has enjoyed a long relationship with Troell that started in the 1960s when he directed a series of short films for SF Studios. Following this, Troell made his directorial feature film debut at SF Studios with the drama Here Is Your Life (Här har du ditt liv, 1966), based on Nobel prize winner Eyvind Johnson’s partly autobiographical novel suit. It was after seeing this film that the author Vilhelm Moberg gave Jan Troell his blessing to adapt The Emigrants, based on his four-novel suite.

The four books resulted in two SF Studios produced films, The Emigrants (Utvandrarna, 1971) and The New Land (Nybyggarna, 1972) as well as a longer TV version. The films were nominated for several Academy Awards. Troell was nominated for the Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and the film was nominated for Best Picture.

The success of these films led Troell being offered to make a couple of films in Hollywood: The Pioneers (original title: Zandy's Bride, 1974) and the disaster film The Hurricane (1979). Troell was not allowed to work as a photographer in the productions and barely even got to look at the camera. Instead, he chose to collaborate with renowned Swedish cinemaphotographer Sven Nykvist.

Max von Sydow, who Troell previously worked with in Here Is Your Life and The Emigrants, played the title role in The Flight of the Eagle (1982). The film, about Salomon August Andrée's failed balloon expedition to the North Pole in 1897, exceeded its budget but was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The documentary Sagolandet (1988) can be said to be a central film in his filmography. Troell himself has described it as his favorite. In the three-hour-long film, which is critical of contemporary Sweden, the American psychologist Rollo May has a central role and former prime minister Tage Erlander and prime minister Ingvar Carlsson is interviewed.

Il Capitano (1991) won the Silver Bear in Berlin but was controversial as it was about the Åmsele murders only three years earlier. The criticism was strong during the filming, but after the premiere, the low-key portrayal aroused greater respect considered as a film work.

In the Norwegian-Swedish film about Knut Hamsun, Troell tries to understand why the Norwegian author became a Nazi sympathizer and traitor, while the film As White as a Snow depicts the female aviation pioneer Elsa Andersson. In the Judgment of the Dead man, Troell continues to describe the complications of the Nazi era, about the Swedish journalist Torgny Segerstedt's resistance struggle against German Nazism.

We congratulate Jan Troell on his birthday and his achievement as one of the great filmmakers of our time.