Mai Zetterling

As told through clips from 183 female directors, this epic revisionist history of the cinema focuses on women’s integral role in the development of film art. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Mark Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest filmmakers – all of them women.

7.6/10
9.4%

A celebrated movie star, Mai Zetterling stepped behind the camera in the early 1960's as one of the few female directors in the world. Her works were immediately celebrated worldwide but were later marginalized and forgotten. Always controversial, she stepped on some male toes while telling stories of marital oppression and human liberation. How come we know so little about one of Sweden's most innovative directors? And is what we know true?

6.4/10

Mai Zetterling is interviewed in the summer of 1984 in her house in southern France. Seventeen years have passed since the Girls were made in Sweden and were adversely affected by the criticism. Zetterling discusses why she left Sweden and resides at crucial times in her life; The drama period, to be celebrated actress and then to move to pave his way in the male-dominated director's profession. A guiding star in Zetterling's life has been to constantly expand its boundaries.

Film by Staffan Lamm.

5.6/10

A quick overview of Swedish film history, featuring a breathtaking cavalry of scenes from about 170 films.

In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the "Troubles." But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues.

6.9/10

A young boy named Luke and his grandmother go on vacation only to discover their hotel is hosting an international witch convention, where the Grand High Witch is unveiling her master plan to turn all children into mice. Will Luke fall victim to the witches' plot before he can stop them?

6.8/10
9.3%

Thomas Wilkins has faithfully worked his entire life on Saville Row. Suddenly he is fired by his boss Mr Gerald, who wants a younger man with new ideas. Thomas advertise under "Lonely Hearts" and receives an answer.

4.3/10

An intimate portrait of director Mai Zetterling that includes interviews with Zetterling, David Hughes (Zetterling’s ex-husband and the cowriter of LOVING COUPLES, NIGHT GAMES, and THE GIRLS), and actors Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Bibi Andersson.

Documentary about women in the film industry. Interviews with directors, producers, writers, and actors include Karen Arthur, Lizzie Borden, Joyce Chopra, Martha Coolidge, Donna Deitch, Ann Hui, Euzhan Palcy, Agnès Varda, Margarethe von Trotta, Anne Wheeler, Sandy Wilson, Mai Zetterling

This well-executed biographical docudrama is a plunge into the madness (and the sanity) of a writer living life on its rawest edges. Agnes Von Krusenstjarna (Stina Ekbland) was a Swedish novelist (1894-1940) whose works ranged from the idyllically romantic to crushingly sardonic, sexually explicit autobiography. Von Krusenstjarna teamed up with the eccentric bisexual David Sprengel (Erland Josephson) and continued to suffer bouts of mental instability that Sprengel felt were best cured by sexual abandon. Von Krusenstjarna was not a model of emotional health when she first met Sprengel. She had inherited madness from her family while at the same time passionately rebelled against the narrow-minded mores of her genteel but poor parents. With his own wildly unorthodox behavior, Sprengel both helped and hindered Von Krusenstjarna throughout their turbulent relationship.

6/10

Shows projects built by Skanska all over the world. In Germany, Algeria, Indonesia, Greenland, but also Sweden; Stockholm, Åre and Helsingborg.

The Hitchhiker is a mystery anthology series that aired from 1983 to 1987 on HBO and First Choice in Canada. The series later moved to the USA Network from 1989 to 1991.

6.7/10

Two girls escape from an open borstal for two very different reasons; Annetta to attempt to visit her baby daughter, who is being raised in a convent; and Carol, who hopes to be recaptured and sent to a closed borstal where she knows her girlfriend Doreen is being held. Carol's plan works, although she is devastated to find that not only has Doreen found herself a new girlfriend inside (who both taunt and tease Carol), when Annetta is arrested at the convent and sent to the same closed borstal, she assumes it was Carol who "grassed" her up and proceeds to plan her revenge. Carol finds protection in the form of inmate Eddie, while Annetta's constant bullying attempts keep her in solitary confinement; however, Carol's world is turned upside-down when Eddie is released from borstal and her protection is gone... Written by Rhino

5.5/10

A unique anthology of six short vignettes on the subject of love, all of them written, directed and produced by women.

6.8/10
3.9%

Swedish actress Mai Zetterling offers a look at Stockholm.

A story about Gerda, maid and unmarried. And a New Year's Eve in her life.

A family in their summer house in the Stockholm archipelago. The two daughters fantasize they are adults, representing different colors - red, yellow, blue, green, violet, black and indigo.

6/10

A poll for an advertising agency during a working day resulting in a series of meetings with women and men from different social strata, each one of them with a different problem.

7.4/10

A drama about love, divorce, identity and feminism, made for Sveriges Television.

6.2/10

Eight acclaimed filmmakers bring their unique and differing perspectives to the 1972 Summer Olympic Games held in Munich. The segments include Lelouch's take on Olympic losers and their struggle to remain dignified even in the face of bitter disappointment and defeat; Zetterling's dramatic exploration of the world of weightlifting; and Pfleghar's piece on young Russian gymnast Ludmilla Tourischev's majestic performance on the uneven bars.

6.8/10
5%

A long, brave reach for a portrait, not of an intimate, private love, but of an inspiration, an icon, a man only ever sketched obliquely however many times he painted himself.

Doktor Glas finds himself attracted to a young woman, married to a corrupt clergyman. She's miserable in her marriage, so he agrees to help in anyway he can. But he is quickly torn between passion and morality. The story is based on the 1905 novel by author Hjalmar Söderberg but is updated to the time of the release of the film in 1968.

6.5/10

A theater company rehearses Aristophanes play "Lysistrata" in which the Athenian women revolt to force the men to suspend the war and make peace. The three leading female actresses, Liz, Marianne and Gunilla, all live in humiliating circumstances to their men.

6.8/10

"Night Games" - Jan fights impotence (literal and symbolic) and anguished childhood memories in a decadent Swedish castle where risqué parties and daring scenes defy 1960s' movie censorship, reaffirming the ground-breaking role of Swedish films in helping advance adult, sexually concerned themes in international cinema.

6.3/10

For her feature film directing debut, actress Mai Zetterling turned to Agnes von Krusenstjerna's controversial masterpiece of Swedish feminist literature, "The Misses von Pahlen," an intense and personal seven-part novel that has been likened to the great works of D.H. Lawrence. As three pregnant women from different backgrounds wait to have their babies in a hospital in Stockholm at the outbreak of the Great War, they relive their childhood and youthful experiences via individual flashbacks. Drawing on the classic Ingmar Bergman style of Swedish filmmaking and collaborating with many of his favorite actors as well as the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Zetterling had produced a powerful fusion of personal emotional drama and a commentary on the role of women in a society in moral decline.

6.6/10

A trio of World War 2 vets band together to search for a lost Nazi fortune.

6.1/10

Two boys quarrel about a toy pistol. The game becomes serious. On the roof in a skyskraper district they risk their lifes for the toy pistol.

7.1/10

Joe Newman, a naturalised Briton, is telephoned by his German father, whom he believed long dead, at the same time as a funeral is taking place in Bavaria - with his father's name on the coffin. His investigation in Bavaria reveals startling facts and the obstruction he meets makes him suspect foul play.

6.2/10

John Lewis is bored by his librarian's job and henpecked at home. Then Liz, wife of a local councillor, sets her sights on him. But this is risky stuff in a Welsh valleys town - if he and Liz ever manage to consummate their affair, that is.

6.7/10

An affable drifter on the lamb for a murder he didn't commit hides out in a circus.

5.1/10

When Scotland Yard finds themselves up against a brick wall in tracking down a vicious gang of thieves and bank robbers, they call in Layton, a loner from MI5 to work his way into the gang and help bring them down.

6.7/10

Every year in May several thousand 'Lords of Little Egypt' meet for festivities in the Camargue. Mai Zetterling stays with the gypsies and reports on how they live their lives.

5/10

A businessman (John Gregson) loses his sight in an explosion on the day his wife (Mai Zetterling) planned to leave him for another man (Michael Denison).

6.5/10

A playboy tries to recruit a gang, who include an American who needs cash to satisfy his wife's expensive tastes, and an old time expert cracksman, to rob a foreign embassy's safe, but trouble starts when the plan begins to go wrong.

6.3/10

Crisis in the air: A passenger aboard a commercial airplane flying from London to New York threatens to detonate a bomb over the Atlantic.

6.4/10

Halvard Solness is a middle-aged architect whose ruthlessness in his business makes him a hardened individual. Affected by his ambitions are his wife and his colleagues, until a young woman shows up asking for a promised kingdom.

Ship's officer finds himself in command of a lifeboat full of survivors of a sunken luxury liner.

7.5/10

Baffled and at a loss to understand the mentality of Diana, his wife, Anthony makes a frantic visit to the home of her parents to discover that she is staying with them.

6.1/10

A U.S. sergeant (Richard Widmark), a British sergeant and a British pilot (Nigel Patrick) hijack gold for a German refugee's (Mai Zetterling) war orphans.

6.3/10

Ventriloquist Jerry Morgan has failed with another love affair. The reason: when the relationship reaches the point when it is time to discuss marriage, his two dolls become mean and jealous. Morgan's dollmaker Papinek is member of a spy ring who has stolen the secret plans to the top secret Lafayette airplane. Since Morgan is leaving for Zurich the same night, he decides to hide the secret plan in the heads of the dolls.

6.8/10

When a ballerina's career is ended after she's injured in a traffic accident, her husband decides to try and turn their young daughter into a ballet star. Drama.

4.9/10

Story of a Dutchman's flight across post-war Germany trying to locate the man who alone can clear him of a false murder charge. (BFI Website)

6.7/10

A family is torn apart when their eldest son is hanged for the murder of a young girl.

6.3/10

An underhand solicitor receives threatening notes, and the police are called in to protect him.

6.3/10

A supposedly dead writer suddenly turns up to confront the young woman who is using his penname.

5.9/10

A blackmailer is murdered, and those who witnessed the scene agree to keep quiet; the complication is that the scene is also witnessed by a young artist, a victim of blackmail as well. (BFI Website)

7.5/10

Set in a German theatre after the Second World War, two British soldiers are holding a disparate and hostile band of refugees in this theatre, prior to returning them to their homelands. The soldiers have difficulty dealing with the rivalries between Serb and Croat, resistance fighter and collaborator, Pole and Russian, etc. The threat of plague briefly unites them, but eventually even this wears off and the refugees unite in their hostility to the British.

6.7/10

Arlette is a malicious schoolgirl who uses her feminine charms to attract, and then destroy, every man gullible enough to respond to her flirtations. She sets her cap for the art professor and very nearly does him in... but his loving wife and daughter help the deluded man escape the seductive mantrap.

6.1/10

Somerset Maugham introduces four of his tales in this anthology film: "The Facts of Life," "The Alien Corn," "The Kite," and "The Colonel's Lady."

7.2/10

A British army officer becomes fascinated by the portrait of a young woman. He travels to Germany to find her only to discover that she is suffering from amnesia.

6.6/10

Because of an accident at a military drill the recruit Bengt loses his eyesight and becomes blind. He gets to live with relatives in the countryside and meets the young Ingrid. She falls in love with him but Bengt's bitterness also makes him blind to her attentions.

6.5/10

A young German girl marries an Englishman and moves into his family's household during the last days of World War II. The family and community have conflicting feelings about her presence in the community, and as a result, the family is forced to face their own moral code as they deal with their own prejudices and fears about the seemingly innocent German girl. The war ends, and she finally seems to be accepted into the family and community when her Nazi brother shows up to create havoc.

6.9/10

Robert, an upper-class officer, meets and falls in love with Iris, a house maid. His family will do anything to stop her from marrying him.

6.9/10

The Farmer Germund is planning a wedding between his daughter Marit and Mats, the son of a neighboring farm. Everything seems to be going according to plan until Marit meets the fiddler Jon, an illegitimate son who enchants the youth with his violin.

6.6/10

Jan-Erik Widgren meets the lonely Bertha Olsson, a woman struggling with alcoholism. Though Bertha is already linked to Caligula, Jan-Erik's heartless teacher, she begins a relationship with the boy anyway. When Caligula learns that Jan-Erik is having an affair with Bertha, he begins to torture his student psychologically. He reserves his cruelest behavior for Bertha, however, which results in a tragic turn of events.

7.3/10
8.8%

In the middle of the 1800s Swedish prince Gustaf meets the actress Anna Maria Wastenius and falls in love with her, but it is an impossible love story due to the rules of society.

5.6/10

"I Slew" - Hospital drama of a doctor who thinks that he killed a patient on the operating table.

5.6/10

About the Swedish trickster and thief Lars "Lasse-Maja" Molin. He often disguised himself and lived as a woman in 1800s. He takes place as a kitchen boy for a bailiff and manages to prevent him from taking over the cottage where his beloved lives. His true identity will, however, be disclosed and he is forced to become an outlaw.

5.5/10

The annual gathering and festivities of the gypsies at Les Saintes Maries in Southern France, filmed in 1961 by actress and director Mai Zetterling.