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SWEDISH SIN

By Linda CALLENHOLT

RESERVOIR DOCS - as SALES All rights, World except Scandinavian Countries (Swden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland)

Social issues - Completed 2018

Sex, Lies and Cinema

- Year of production
- 2018
- Genres
- Social issues, Documentary
- Countries
- SWEDEN
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Linda CALLENHOLT
- Producer(s)
- Mattias J. SKOGLUND (Inland Film AB)
- Synopsis
- One of the world’s most enduring myths created through the power of cinema: Sweden, a sexual paradise?
  
  It all began in earnest with two films in the early fifties:” One Summer of Happiness” by Arne Mattson, and” Summer with Monika” by Ingmar Bergman.
  ”One Summer of Happiness” won the Golden Bear in Berlin and was quickly distributed to over 90 countries.” Summer with Monika” was in Cannes and got picked up by the U.S distributor Kroger Babb, known for his shameless marketing methods. He dubbed it in English and rebranded it as” Monika - the story of a bad girl” with the tagline” The Devil controls her by radar”. It became an instant success. It was not only the nudity that spurred controversy but Monika taking sexual initiatives and leaving her husband.
  
  Kerstin in Mattson’s movie has sex before marriage. The world these movies portrayed were extreme in its handling of nudity, sex, marriage and equality. And where did they come from? Sweden.
  
  Our quest for answers takes us on a thrilling and entertaining journey spanning a good chunk of the twentieth century, where we discover strong movie personalities and festival winning art-house films but also disastrous soft porn flicks, presidents and politicians, influential journalists and advertising executives against the backdrop of major political and societal changes.