- Born
- Died
- Place
Mai Zetterling
Mai Elisabeth Zetterling ( May 24, 1925 – March 17, 1994) was a Swedish actress and film director.
She began directing in the early 1960s, starting with political documentaries and a short film called The War Game (1962), which was nominated for a BAFTA award, and won a Silver Lion at Venice. Her first feature film Älskande par (1964, "Loving Couples"), based on the novels of Agnes von Krusenstjerna, was banned at the Cannes Film Festival for its sexual explicitness and nudity. Kenneth Tynan of The Observer later called it "one of the most ambitious debuts since Citizen Kane." It was not the only film she made that would stir up controversy for its frank sexuality (early pioneer on voyeurism).
When critics reviewing her debut feature said that "Mai Zetterling directs like a man," she began to explore feminist themes more explicitly in her work. The Girls, which had an all-star Swedish cast including Bibi Andersson and Harriet Andersson, discussed women's liberation (or lack thereof) in a society controlled by men, as the protagonists compare their lives to characters in the play Lysistrata, and find that things have not progressed very much for women since ancient times.
As director
Sunday Pursuit
Amorosa
Concrete Grandma
Scrubbers
Love
Of Seals and Men
Mai Zetterling's Stockholm
The Moon Is a Green Cheese
We Have Many Names
Visions of Eight
Vincent the Dutchman
Doctor Glas
The Girls
Night Games
Loving Couples
The War Game
Lords of Little Egypt: Mai Zetterling Among the Gypsies
The Polite Invasion
As actor
Prejudice and Pride: Swedish Film Queer
Regissören: En film om Mai Zetterling
Meeting with Mai
Minns ni?
Morfars resa
Sellers' Best
The Witches
Hidden Agenda
The Making of 'Hidden Agenda'
Maybe I Really Am a Sorceress
Calling the Shots
Stulet nyår
Mai Zetterling's Stockholm
My Heart Is Red
We Have Many Names
Visions of Eight
Lianbron
The Man Who Finally Died
The Bay of St. Michel
Only Two Can Play
The Main Attraction
Offbeat
Lords of Little Egypt: Mai Zetterling Among the Gypsies
Faces in the Dark
Piccadilly Third Stop
The Traitor
Jet Storm
The Master Builder
Playing on the Rainbow
Seven Waves Away