10/03/2006

Far from the dozens of prints and media frenzy surrounding his previous films, Lukas Moodysson’s Container is being released today by Folkets Bio on only three screens: in Stockholm, Göteborg and Lund. This small release corresponds to Moodysson’s intimate desire to free himself from mass and media exposure that he unintentionally brought forth with the success of his previous films Show Me Love and Together in particular, and Container itself was purposely made for a “happy” few. “I was aiming at an audience of a thousand people for this film”, explained Moodysson during the world premiere of his film at Berlin’s Panorama section last month.

Described by the director as “a black and white silent movie with sound”, Moodysson’s seventh film is more art than film because of its experimental nature and effort required by the audience to try to understand what the director wanted to express (see film review). "A woman in a man´s body. A man in a woman´s body. Jesus in Mary´s stomach. Her water breaks. It floods into me. I can´t close the lid. My heart is full," is the three line synopsis for the film, a hotchpotch of very personal ideas and obsessions from the director, voiced off screen by US actress Jena Malone and acted on screen by Peter Lorentzon and Mariha Åberg.

For Katrina Mathsson from Folkets Bio, who handled Moodysson’s 2003 documentary Terrorists: A Film About Those Who Were Sentenced, art lovers are exactly the type of audience that the film is targeting. The company also worked with Färgfabriken, a contemporary art gallery in Stockholm that is hosting an exhibit by Moodysson called The Container Museum (March 10-26). It is a room containing all the props from the film, with the film itself projected continuously on the walls.

As usual, Moodysson gave very few and selective interviews, but Peter Lorentzon, previously seen in Björn Runge’s Daybreak, is expected to be present at tonight’s Swedish premiere of the film, in Göteborg.