Swedish Outsider: The Films of Mai Zetterling

March 1–May 8, 2025

A centennial year celebration of the films of Mai Zetterling (1925–1994), the Swedish-born actor-turned-director, featuring some of her best screen roles and the short films, documentaries, and features that earned her a reputation as a director interested in psychological treatments and sexual candor. With guest presenters Linda Haverty Rugg and Anna Stenport.

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Mai Zetterling: Loving Couples, 1964
Mai Zetterling: The Girls, 1968
Gustaf Edgren: Sunshine Follows Rain, 1946
Ingmar Bergman: Music in the Dark, 1948

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Past
Films
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Upcoming Films

Torment
Alf Sjöberg
Sweden, 1944
Saturday, March 1 6:30 PM
Introduced by Linda Haverty Rugg
Ingmar Bergman’s first produced screenplay was for the great Swedish filmmaker Alf Sjöberg’s Torment, a dark coming-of-age drama about a boarding-school senior who falls in love with a shopgirl, with a standout performance by Mai Zetterling. Preceded by a short documentary on Zetterling’s career.
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Music in the Dark
Ingmar Bergman
Sweden, 1948
Sunday, March 2 1:30 PM
Introduced by Linda Haverty Rugg
Ingmar Bergman’s early, restless experimentation with different aesthetics is at its height in this tale of the relationship between a young, blind musician and a lower-class servant girl, played by Mai Zetterling.
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Loving Couples
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1964
Digital Restoration

Repeats Thursday, May 1, 7:00 PM (without introduction)
Friday, March 7 7:00 PM
Introduced Linda Haverty Rugg
“Wildly subversive in its treatment of sexuality, gender, class, religion, marriage, and motherhood, Loving Couples is as electrifying a first feature as any in cinema history, announcing the arrival of an uncompromising artist in pursuit of raw emotional truth” (Janus Films).
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Night Games
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1966
Digital Restoration

Also screens Saturday, May 3, 7:00 PM (without introduction)
Thursday, March 13 7:00 PM
Introduced by Linda Haverty Rugg
“An absorbing, even brilliant film. . . . When it was first exhibited at the Venice Film Festival in 1966, it was considered the most daring film ever made” (Roger Ebert).
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The Girls
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1968
Digital Restoration

Also screens Thursday, May 8, 7:00 PM (without conversation)
Saturday, March 15 7:00 PM
Anna Stenport and Linda Haverty Rugg in Conversation
In Mai Zetterling’s send-up of gender relations in contemporary Sweden, life, art, and fantasy intermingle as actors Liz (Bibi Andersson), Marianne (Harriet Andersson), and Gunilla (Gunnel Lindblom) perform in a touring production of Aristophanes’s Lysistrata.
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We Have Many Names plus Short Films
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1976
Sunday, March 16 3:00 PM
Lecture by Anna Stenport
“Through several stylistic choices, Mai Zetterling moves beyond clichés and into the woman’s mind, addressing issues of life purpose, the immaturity of attachment, and the infantilization of women in marriage” (Mariah Larsson, A Cinema of Obsession: The Life and Work of Mai Zetterling). Screens with a selection of Zetterling’s short films, including two documentaries.
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Doktor Glas
Mai Zetterling
Denmark, 1968
Saturday, March 22 4:30 PM
Introduced by Linda Haverty Rugg
This tale of sexual obsession and moral hypocrisy, told in flashbacks, is both social critique and psychological study, with Glas’s surreal and nightmarish visions shot in high contrast by cinematographer Rune Ericson. Perhaps the least-seen of Mai Zetterling’s films.
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Iris and the Lieutenant
Alf Sjöberg
Sweden, 1946
Digital Restoration
Sunday, March 23 3:00 PM
Mai Zetterling reunites with her costar from Alf Sjöberg’s Torment, Alf Kjellin, in a tragic class drama, as a lieutenant falls for a housemaid, while his wealthy relatives will stop at nothing to keep the pair apart.
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Sunshine Follows Rain
Gustaf Edgren
Sweden, 1946
Digital Restoration
Saturday, March 29 6:30 PM
Director Gustaf Edgren gave Mai Zetterling the lead role in this rural drama, which became one of the biggest Swedish box-office successes of the postwar period and established Zetterling as a major star.
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Loving Couples
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1964
Digital Restoration

Also screens Friday, March 7, 7:00 PM (with introduction)
Thursday, May 1 7:00 PM
“Wildly subversive in its treatment of sexuality, gender, class, religion, marriage, and motherhood, Loving Couples is as electrifying a first feature as any in cinema history, announcing the arrival of an uncompromising artist in pursuit of raw emotional truth” (Janus Films).
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Night Games
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1966
Digital Restoration

Also screens Thursday, March 13, 7:00 PM (with introduction)
Saturday, May 3 7:00 PM
“An absorbing, even brilliant film. . . . When it was first exhibited at the Venice Film Festival in 1966, it was considered the most daring film ever made” (Roger Ebert).
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Amorosa
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1986
Digital Restoration
Sunday, May 4 4:00 PM
Stina Ekblad stars as the controversial writer Agnes von Krusenstjerna (1894–1940) in this portrait of the artist and her troubled romance with the notorious older man David Sprengel (Erland Josephson) and her mental health struggles.
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The Girls
Mai Zetterling
Sweden, 1968
Digital Restoration

Also screens Saturday, March 15, 7:00 PM (with conversation)
Thursday, May 8 7:00 PM
In Mai Zetterling’s send-up of gender relations in contemporary Sweden, life, art, and fantasy intermingle as actors Liz (Bibi Andersson), Marianne (Harriet Andersson), and Gunilla (Gunnel Lindblom) perform in a touring production of Aristophanes’s Lysistrata.
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Past Films

Swedish Outsider: The Films of Mai Zetterling

March 1–May 8, 2025

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Mai Zetterling (1925–1994), the Swedish-born actor-turned-director, enjoyed an international career. She worked in Stockholm, London, Hollywood, and Denmark, and lived abroad in England and France for many years. She was on record as feeling at times like a Swedish outsider. This series is timed with her centennial year and focuses largely on her Swedish productions. We are delighted to welcome Linda Haverty Rugg, Professor Emerita in the Department of Scandinavian at UC...

Zetterling began her professional career at age seventeen. She was launched to stardom with three Swedish films: Alf Sjöberg’s classic Torment (1944), based on a script by Ingmar Bergman; Gustaf Edgren’s Sunshine Follows Rain (1946), one of the top-grossing Swedish films of its day; and Sjöberg’s lovely Iris and the Lieutenant (1946). Zetterling enjoyed success abroad and returned to Sweden to appear in Music in the Dark (1948), the fourth film written and directed by Bergman. Zetterling had her sights set on directing for film. She made the short film The War Game (1963) and then directed an impressive series of feature films—Loving Couples, Night Games, The Girls, and Doktor Glas—all completed in the period 1964–68. These works are distinguished by their psychological treatments, sexual candor, star power (featuring performances by Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Gunnel Lindblom, Ingrid Thulin), and high production values (art direction, location shooting, cinematography).

Other series highlights include We Have Many Names (1976), planned for UNESCO’s International Women’s Year, a project that Zetterling conceived, directed, and starred in; and Amorosa (1986), which allowed Zetterling to return to her interest in the Swedish feminist writer Agnes von Krusenstjerna (Zetterling’s debut feature, Loving Couples, was based on Krusenstjerna’s novels). Amorosa stars Stina Ekblad in a portrait of the controversial writer and her troubled romance with a notorious older man, played by Erland Josephson.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator

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Thanks to Kasja Hedström, Swedish Film Institute; Emily Woodburne, Janus Films; Linda Haverty Rugg, Department of Scandinavian, and Mark Sandberg, Nordic Center, UC Berkeley; and the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.