Series Site
MAI ZETTERLING, a two-week, 21-film retrospective of the Swedish actress and filmmaker’s career, will run at Film Forum from Friday, May 6 through Thursday, May 19. The series includes Zetterling’s eight features as director, many in new restorations from the Swedish Film Institute, along with selections from her acting work.
Born to a working-class family in Västerås, Sweden, MAI ZETTERLING (1925-1994) first came to international attention as the “sweet, blonde, and defenseless” (Leif Furhammar) star in post-war Swedish, British, and Hollywood movies. But she made her mark in the 1960s as the director of daring features, groundbreaking for their depiction of dynamic female protagonists at odds with contemporary mores, radical commentary on the sociopolitical attitude of the era, brazen sexuality and transgressive homoeroticism (she believed that “if you are doing a film in which the main characters are obsessed by sex, worried by it, frightened by it, then you have to show it, to deal with it”). Her work was often dismissed by male critics, who took issue with its “stridently feminist” themes. Her body of work, impact, and significant contributions to film history are still widely overlooked.