Ewa Fröling

Colin Nutley's prequel to his 2001 film Deadline, Paradise tells the story of how tabloid reporter Annika Bengtzon (Helena Bergström) cracked her first big story. On the low-end of the totem pole at the tabloid where she is employed, Annika receives a call from Rebecca Björkstig (Lisa Nilsson) encouraging her to write a story about a domestic abuse protection and recovery foundation known as Paradise. Having had first-hand experience with that problem, Annika is sympathetic to Paradise's aims. After taking a call from a distressed woman named Aida (Suzanna Dilber) in which Aida claims to have an abusive significant other, Annika puts Aida into the Paradise program. However, Annika does some investigative work and discovers that Aida may be involved in a shooting and that Paradise may not be what it seems. Paradise is an adaptation of one of a popular series of novels written by Liza Marklund. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Nine of Sweden's leading actresses are brought together in this unconventional comedy-drama about a group of actresses awaiting a casting announcement. A major American film producer is looking for a Swedish actress to play the title role in a big-budget remake of the classic Greta Garbo vehicle Queen Christina, and a handful of women who were in talks for the role wait with bated breath for the decision to be declared. Rebecca (Lena Endre), married to hunky matinee idol Ake (Mikael Persbrandt), is spending her 40th birthday waiting for word on the role. Alexandra (Suzanne Reuter) will be shooting a TV commercial, to be directed by Rolf (Brasse Brannstrom). Rolf used to be involved with Cecilia (Marie Richardson), who lately is nearly as well known for the fact that she's pregnant and not identifying the father as she is for her acting. Cecilia appears on a morning chat show with Georgina (Ewa Froling), who used to be in love with Gregor (Peter Haber), Alexandra's current husband. Stella (Helena Bergstrom) is a defiantly out lesbian who is having an affair with Karin (Marika Lagercrantz), the wife of film director Magnus (Rolf Lassgard). Stella also happens to be starring in Magnus' latest project, along with Ake and Molly (Pernilla August). Meanwhile, Git (Gunilla Roor) is in a session with her analyst, trying to come to terms with her feelings about her work, and Evior (Stina Ekblad) is in rehearsal for a musical, and reaching the regrettable conclusion that she can neither dance nor sing. In keeping with the film's tangled onscreen relationships, Helena Bergstrom, who plays a lesbian sleeping with her director's wife, is married to Colin Nutley, Gossip's writer and director. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Anna and her father fled Estonia during WW II and moved to England. At the time, she believed that her mother was dead. In 1989, Anna's father dies and shortly thereafter she finds a bunch of old photographs and letters. Reading them, she begins to reassemble a clearer picture of her long-forgotten past as well as that of her father, who rarely spoke of himself. Most disturbingly, she believes that she has found evidence that her mother (whose story unfolds via flashback) may have survived. This drama chronicles Anna's return to tumultuous Estonia to learn the truth. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, the bleak period piece Oxen was co-written and directed by Ingmar Bergman's longtime cinematographer Sven Nykvist. In the small village of Småland in the late 1860s, Helge Roos (Stellan Skarsgård) works as a farmer on an estate belonging to Svenning Gustafsson (Lennart Hjulström) and his wife (Liv Ullmann). Plagued by a terrible famine, Helge illegally kills one of the Gustaffson's last oxen so his own family can eat. He and his wife, Elfrida (Ewa Fröling), feel guilty about it, but the meat keeps them alive through the winter. When he tries to sell the hide in the spring, a clergyman (Max Von Sydow) finds out and encourages him to confess. The judge sentences Helge to a life of manual labor at the state prison for his crime. When he is finally pardoned and released after six years, he returns home to Elfrida to find out that she has been supporting the family by performing sexual services, which has resulted in the birth of another child. In the 1970s, Von Sydow and Ullmann appeared together in a set of films also dealing with the Swedish famine in Jan Troell's The Emigrants and The New Land. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

This comedy is the latest in a series featuring the vacation antics of hapless Stig-Helmer (Lasse Aberg) and his pal Ole (Jon Skolen). In this installment the hapless city-dwellers go to an island resort in the north of Sweden and try tio impress the ladies by acting like latterday Viking seamen. Their mishaps are treated with affectionate humor, and there is a good deal of satire at the expense of Sweden and the Swedes. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on the controversial theatrical piece by Swedish playwright Lars Noren, Demons (Demoner) is a devastating study of a dysfunctional marriage. The combatants are Ewa Froling and Lars Green, who consider the day wasted if they can't viciously tear into one another. Green hopes for a respite when his in-laws announce that they plan to visit, but the would-be guests, anticipating a battle royal, decide not to show up. Desperate for human companionship other than his hated wife, Green invites a neighboring couple, Pia Oscarsson and Bjorn Granath, over for a few drinks. What follows makes Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf look like The Donna Reed Show. Even if you survive the film's ceaseless barrage of verbal recriminations and physical humiliations, you will not be totally prepared for Demons' grim climax. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Following on the heels of the preceding animated feature, Pelle Svansloes (Peter No-Tail), this moppet adventure film has no real scares for the tots. Peter No-Tail -- his forever embarrassing lack of a tail makes him the butt of jokes, so to speak -- dreams that he is in the Wild West. Just as he is overcoming his enemy Hobo Mans, he wakes up. Peter decides to take a trip into the forest, but unknown to him, Hobo Mans and his catty sidekicks are after him again, and this time it is not a dream. It takes all of Peter's ingenuity with a large measure of blind luck to escape his tormentors -- but then Fate steps in and Peter has a chance to let his good nature save the day. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this conventional comedy about a stand-up trio who come together again after a 16-year-hiatus to write material for a friend's wedding, the actors add enough of their talents to the script to lighten up the movie, but the narrative is still rather ordinary. Two of the trio were married to each other but have been divorced for awhile. When the ex-wife starts to fall for the other member of the trio -- who is newly-divorced himself, her ex-husband begins to feel pangs of jealousy. Their real problem, however, is how to come up with new material for their skit at the wedding since the years and adulthood seem to have altered their original viewpoints on what is funny. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Though he made allusions to his own life in all of his films, Fanny and Alexander was the first overtly autobiographical film by Ingmar Bergman. Taking his time throughout (188 minutes to be exact), Bergman recreates several episodes from his youth, using as conduits the fictional Ekdahl family. Alexander, the director's alter ego, is first seen at age 10 at a joyous and informal Christmas gathering of relatives and servants. Fanny is Alexander's sister; both suffer an emotional shakedown when their recently-widowed mother (Ewa Froling) marries a cold and distant minister. Stripped of their creature comforts and relaxed family atmosphere, Fanny and Alexander suddenly find their childhood unendurable. The kids' grandmother (Gunn Wallgren) "kidnaps" Fanny and Alexander for the purpose of showering them with the first kindness and affection that they've had since their father's death. This "purge" of the darker elements of Fanny and Alexander's existence is accomplished at the unintentional (but applaudable) cost of the hated stepfather's life. Ingmar Bergman insisted that Fanny and Alexander, originally a multipart television series pared down to feature-film length, represented his final film, though within a year after its release he was busy with several additional Swedish TV projects, and he returned to make one more theatrical release movie before his death - the 2003 Saraband. Oscars went to Fanny and Alexander for Best Foreign Film, Best Cinematography (Sven Nykvist), Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a characterization that twists and turns like an insomniac, (Ewa Froeling) does the best she can with the female lead, Sally. The "liberated" Sally (a social worker) first wants to marry, and did marry Jonas, the lawyer. She wanted a child and did have little Mia. She does not want another child, gets pregnant, and gets an abortion without telling Jonas ahead of time. She next wants a divorce, and gets one, leaving with Mia. Then she wants to live together with Simon, a teacher, but does not want to marry him - and she carries that out. Then she wants Mia to live with Jonas, and sends her away. When she sees Jonas is happily married again, and Mia is happy, she wants to be married too. Simon does not. She wants a child. Simon does not. She gets pregnant. Simon does not want the child. She goes for another abortion. To say that Sally does not know her own mind, is to assume that the character has one as she fluctuates between wanting marriage and wanting divorce, wanting a baby and wanting an abortion, not wanting marriage and wanting marriage, not wanting an abortion and not wanting a baby. There are only so many of these combinations that can go around before three lemons come up. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide