Mai Elisabeth Zetterling May 24 1925 March 17 1994 was a Swedish actress and film director She began directing in the early 1960s starting with political documentaries and a short film called The War Game 1962 which was nominated for a BAFTA award and won a Silver Lion at Venice Her first feature film Älskande par 1964 Loving Couples based on the novels of Agnes von Krusenstjerna was banned at the Cannes Film Festival for its sexual explicitness and nudity Kenneth Tynan of The Observer later called it one of the most ambitious debuts since Citizen Kane It was not the only film she made that would stir up controversy for its frank sexuality early pioneer on voyeurism When critics reviewing her debut feature said that Mai Zetterling directs like a man she began to explore feminist themes more explicitly in her work The Girls which had an allstar Swedish cast including Bibi Andersson and Harriet Andersson discussed womens liberation or lack thereof in a society controlled by men as the protagonists compare their lives to characters in the play Lysistrata and find that things have not progressed very much for women since ancient times
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