Archive of films She Monkeys / Apflickorna
Sweden
2011, 84 min
Section:
Variety's Ten Euro Directors to Watch
Year: 2011
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.
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.
Contacts
Swedish Film Institute
Box 27126, S-102 52, Stockholm
Sweden
Tel: +46 866 511 00
Fax: +46 866 118 20
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.sfi.se
The Yellow Affair
Korkeavuorenkatu 25 A 1, 00130, Helsinki
Finland
Tel: +1 718 290 5914
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.yellowaffair.com
About the film
Color, 35 mm
Section: | Variety's Ten Euro Directors to Watch |
---|---|
Director: | Lisa Aschan |
Screenplay: | Josefine Adolfsson, Lisa Aschan |
Dir. of Photography: | Linda Wassberg |
Music: | Sami Sänpäkkilä |
Editor: | Kristofer Nordin |
Producer: | Helene Lindholm |
Production: | Atmo Produktion AB |
Cast: | Mathilda Paradeiser, Linda Molin, Isabella Lindquist |
Contact: | Swedish Film Institute, The Yellow Affair |
Guests

Lisa Aschan
Film Director