In one of the extras on Criterion’s Three Films by Mai Zetterling, a long overdue acknowledgment of this filmmaker, her ex-husband David Hughes recalls that one morning, the acclaimed Swedish actress sat up in bed and announced that from now on, she’d start directing films. Within a few weeks, she’d secured funding for her first documentary, and her new career was launched.
When she turned her attention to features, she consistently made a scandalous splash at film festivals. Respectively at Cannes and then Venice, her first two features, Loving Couples and Night Games, had their posters censored as pornographic. Venice wouldn’t even allow the public to see the film. Bizarrely, Zetterling was the queen of “My films are at major festivals, but you can’t see them.” We can see them now, thanks to the Swedish Film Institute‘s 2K digital restorations and Criterion’s Blu-rays.