She Monkeys

Colour, 35 mm
Sweden, 2011, 84 min
Section: Variety’s Ten Euro Directors to Watch

Synopsis

Delivering one of the most intense and complex feature debuts to come from Sweden since Lukas Moodysson’s Show Me Love, director Lisa Aschan thrillingly subverts the coming-of-age genre, political correctness, gender roles and just about everything to do with the depiction of developing sexuality in the taboo-breaking She Monkeys. Winner of the Gothenburg fest’s Nordic film prize and critics’ award, and Tribeca’s Best Narrative, the film plays with traditional expectations in an unsettling manner that feels tantamount to dangerous…Monkeys centers on sisters Emma, a talented teen gymnast, and Sara, a precocious 7-year-old. When Emma joins a riding stable where girls train to perform acrobatics on horseback, she meets the slightly older Cassandra and the two begin a relationship fraught with physical and psychological challenges.

About the director

Lisa Aschan (b. 1979, Vejbystrand, Sweden), a graduate of the National Film School of Denmark, received attention for "Fuck the Rapist!”, a collection of fictional ads for spiked tampons. She also created a drama series for Danish TV channel DR1, attended Sweden’s Royal University College of Fine Arts and worked at Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theater. Her short films In Transit (2005) and Goodbye Bluebird (2007) screened at festivals around the world and established her reputation for suggestive visual language and naturalistic direction. She Monkeys (2011), her debut feature, nabbed top prize in the World Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival.