06/03/2013 - Swedish actress-director Helena Bergström first directed the 1888 classic for the stage, while all the time considering how it might work on film

While Norwegian actress-director Liv Ullmann will shortly start principal photography for her adaption of Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, with a US-UK cast of Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton, Swedish actress-director Helena Bergström (photo) last week (March 1) launched her update of the 1888 play, titled Julie [+see also:
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“Strindberg questions problems which I think are extremely important to discuss today,” said Bergström, who directed the stage production of Miss Julie at Stockholms Stadsteater in 2011, while she was all the time thinking how it would work on film.

“During rehearsals I would imagine ‘oh, here I would use a close-up of her’,” she told Sweden’s DN – “I tried to translate my film ideas into theatre, which in some ways went wrong.” Still her interpretation of Strindberg’s battle-of-the-sexes was well received by the critics.

According to Bergström the picture of happy lives presented by social media such as Facebook and Instagram makes a lot of people unhappy. “I think they feel lonely, like Julie. I explain Julie’s story as a loss of identity,” she concluded.

Scripted by Bergström, and starring her stage actors Nadja Mirmiran, Björn Bengtsson and Sofi Helleday, and shot by Jens Fischer, Julie was produced by Petra Jönsson, for Sweetwater Production, with support from the Swedish Film Institute. Swedish major Svensk Filmindustri will handle domestic distribution.