SWAT / She's Wild Again Tonight / 2008 - / work in progress

A contemporary screen adaptation of August Strindberg’s play Miss Julie, seen from a feminist and psychoanalytic perspective. The film operates on three layers of fiction: feature film, theatre and documentary. Julie, a New York based director with Swedish roots, is staging a feminist version of Strindberg’s play Miss Julie. She casts a lesbian couple, Jeanne and Christine, to play Jean and Kristin, and she gives the production an S&M angle to emphasize the Master&Slave theme in the original play. By controlling the game, the set dominant-submissive roles in the play will be changed. Together they will try to save Julie from suicide. Parallel with the rehearsals, Julie’s own love life develops in a terrifying direction similar to the original play. Julie starts to lose it, both on and off stage. To solve her problems her father turns to a real life psychoanalyst specializing in the problem of domination in sexual relationships.

August Strindbergs Miss Julie, probably the most famous Swedish play ever, works on the subject of men’s domination and women’s subordination in a unique and profound way. The first act consists of a long power struggle/seduction game between Jean and Julie. They are equally strong, but on different basis. In the middle of the play there is a dramatic change: Jean and Julie have sex and the balance of power starts to slide. Jean ends up in a superior position, while Julie is consumed. And she is finally forced to commit suicide (with Jean's razor). Strindberg's play is more than a 100 years old, but it is highly topical. Despite feminist consciousness there is lack of emotional comprehension. This gap between theory and practice is very obvious in sexual relationships.

The film is to be shot in 2009 in New York City and it’s going to be a Swedish-American co-production.

Stills from the production of the trailer in August 2008