A showcase of the winning feature film from 2024.
PREJUDICE & PRIDE – SWEDISH FILM QUEER, 100min., Sweden
Directed by Eva Elisabeth Beling
Prejudice & Pride – Swedish Film Queer is a rainbow-colored rollercoaster ride through a stunning collection of films. From Mauritz Stiller’s filming of the world’s first gay romance in 1916 to Sweden’s exciting new wave of Scandinavian transgender films, there’s plenty of gay people, drag kings and drag queens, revelations about Ingmar Bergman, 70s sexploitation camp and Greta Garbo glamour, along with all the highs and lows of the century-long struggle for queer liberation.
http://belingfilms.com/
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https://instagram.com/swedishfilmqueer
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Director Statement
All films, music, still images have a license agreement that is valid for 15 years in all media and worldwide. It was important for me to be able to show the film everywhere in the world without restrictions. From the beginning I had included American, German, French and Italian films, but when I had to clear the film rights in these countries it turned out to be complicated and expensive. As a result, I could only have Swedish films. I followed my heart and included the entire film history in Sweden from 1916 until today. The only exception I could afford was one important foreign film “Queen Christina” with Greta Garbo made in Hollywood 1933.
Queen Christina was Garbo’s life project. Already in the first frames, we understand she wanted to interpret the Swedish gay or bisexual queen in her own way beyond the role interpretations she has previously made. Garbo is an important female role model and lesbian icon throughout the world, and it was not right to mention her in passing while Ingmar Bergman and Mauritz Stiller got their own chapter in the film.
I wanted to draw attention to Greta Garbo’s importance, so I edited a beautiful chapter with clips from Queen Christina and sent it to Warner Brother’s. However, when I contacted Warner Brother’s they only allowed me to use two continuous clips one minute each. This was difficult to accept and almost impossible creatively. But I reedited the chapter with two continuous clips and they approved. Because of this restriction the Garbo chapter did not turn out the way I wanted it to, but Garbo lights up with her presence.
Ingmar Bergman may primarily be known as a filmmaker but started with handwritten scripts. When we looked closer in the early handwritten script of the film Persona we found a lesbian scene very explicit. In the finished film Persona the lesbian scene is only hinted at.
This is sensational news and we have a unique interview with actress Liv Ullmann who talks about the film Persona for the first time from this perspective. Perhaps the time has come to change the image of the apparent monolith that goes by the name Ingmar Bergman.
An archive is not only a storage place. It is moving materia and a history that is rewritten by each new age. I hope you see the unique content as well. The film draws attention to something that we have forgotten and pushed away from our history, the outcasts, the secret, the invisible. These films want to speak to us and show us what we have forgotten or pushed away from our history.
LGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival 