Mai Zetterling

A journey through Swedish queer film history.

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?

While staying at a hotel in England with his grandmother, Helga, a young boy named Luke inadvertently spies on a convention of witches. The Grand High Witch reveals a plan to turn all children into mice via a magical formula. When they discover the eavesdropper, the witches test the formula on him. Now, with the help of Helga and hotel manager Mr Stringer, Luke the mouse must fight back against the witches.

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.

Documentary looking at the making-of and real-life stories behind the award-winning conspiracy thriller starring Oscar-winner Frances McDormand and Brian Cox

One of the all-time greatest comedians, Peter Sellers’ mimicry, timing, instinct and ability to decimate an audience with laughter made him absolutely unforgettable. Combining comedy and acting like no one before, or since, Sellers starred in legendary cult films such as Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and The Return of the Pink Panther. Sellers’ Best explores not only his comedic talent but goes beneath to examine the man himself and features interviews with those who knew him best, such as Spike Milligan, Beryl Reid and John Sessions

Shortly after the end of the war Göran is forced to take care of his somewhat delirious grandfather who manages to confuse a couple of letters resulting in a mess of things.

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

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.

Documentary about women in the film industry. Numerous notable actresses and female directors share their thoughts.

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.

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.

A sacrificial passive woman spends her life breeding happiness into her family. What happens when her world of security cracks, shatters completely and her identity dissolves?

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.

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

Mai Zetterling explores Swedish cultural canon in a Canadian TV-production called “Cities”. Zetterling herself play all the prominent roles.

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.

John Lewis is bored of his job and his wife. 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.

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

A businessman loses his sight in an explosion on the day his wife planned to leave him for another man.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Swedish scientist couple comes to a small African village to fight malaria.

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

After a massive luxury liner sinks into the ocean, the ship's officer must command a rickety lifeboat, built for only nine, that is stuffed with over twenty desperate and injured passengers. As a hurricane approaches and the many wounded passengers struggle for life, difficult decisions must be made about who will remain on the boat and who must be cast to the sea in order to give others the chance to survive.

A man recalls his relationships with the women he loved as he tries to help another man try to understand them as well.

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)

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 a member of a spy ring who has stolen the secret plans for 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.

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

A U.S. sergeant, a British sergeant and a British pilot hijack gold for a German refugee's war orphans.

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)

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

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.

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

The school counselor Vanja believe neither in love, marriage or a woman's subservient role to the man. One day she meets the student Björn. Their romance is full of problems. Along comes a man from Vanjas past.

In wartime, an English spy must go into neutral territory to murder a fellow-Englishman who has been working for the enemy.

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.

August Strindberg's feedback to Henrik Ibsen's "Doll's House"--a short story from the collection "Giftas" (Getting married), about female emancipation and obsolete marriages.

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.

In postwar Sweden, a gifted young pianist’s life is transformed after a tragic accident leaves him blind. Struggling with bitterness, isolation, and the loss of his former world, he finds unexpected support and companionship from a compassionate young woman who helps him rebuild his sense of purpose. As their relationship deepens over the years, both must confront questions of pride, class, and emotional vulnerability in order to move forward.

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.

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."

Injured and on his deathbed in Greece, Lord Byron imagines a celestial trial with witnesses to determine the worth of his character.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

An RAF pilot who was shot down during WWII returns home to his English village with his new bride. The trouble is that she is the German lady who helped him escape.

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.

A married priest woos a seamstress.

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.

Mai Zetterling goes to Lapland and makes a documentary about the Sami people and their dwindling existence as nomads. Civilization and the Swedes are invading.