Loving Couples

Mai Zetterling’s feature film debut as director weaves together the lives of three women, each reflecting on their personal and sexual lives as they arrive at a maternity ward.

With whispers of the first World War in the air, three pregnant women arrive at a maternity ward in Stockholm. In their anxious, in-hospital stasis, the women reflect on their lives: their childhoods, their personal lives, and their sexual experiences. Each of their lives intersect at a midsummer celebration – a sunlit night where the light shines on the liminal moments that sent their lives in new and divergent directions.

Based on a literary series, The Misses von Pahlen, by Swedish novelist Agnes von Krusenstjerna whose novels shocked Swedish readers and triggered a national debate on free speech, Mai Zetterling’s adaptation caused controversies of its own, from its poster that was banned at the Cannes Film Festival – the silhouettes of figures in the throes of passion.

After its release in Sweden, Loving Couples screened in competition at the 18th Cannes Film Festival. Mai Zetterling was the only female director to have a film in competition that year, and only the sixth female director to have a feature in competition up to that point.

–Reece Goodwin, Curator (TV & Special Events)