In the aftermath of the MeToo movement, during an ongoing pandemic, and in the midst of repeated demands for a 50/50 split between men and women in above-the-line positions, this book analyzes and interrogates the politics of gender focusing on the Swedish film industry, often considered to be the most "gender equal" film industry worldwide. While this gender equality (with a considerable proportion of women behind the camera) is much due to policies carried out of the state-funded Swedish Film Institute, women filmmakers in Sweden still struggle with the same problems as do women in other national film industries. These problems entail having smaller production and distribution budgets than men and working in an environment involving recurring scandals of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.

This open access book looks behind the statistics and explores the often complex cultural, legal, and political conditions under which women have entered a male-dominated industry and discusses women's strategies and efforts to promote change while providing evidence on how women's presence has challenged the industry by provoking critical reactions and introducing new ways to portray women on screen. Using a wide range of different sources (e.g. archival material, laws, contracts, films, biographical materials, and interviews), the book tells the history of the rise of gender equality efforts undertaken by the Swedish Film Institute and investigates women's possibilities to manage the rights to their work. It offers compelling portraits of pioneering women who have worked in or in relation to the industry and looks at the experiences of women currently working in the film industry.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Örebro universitet.

Louise Wallenberg is Professor in Fashion Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. She was the establishing director of the Centre for Fashion Studies between 2007 and 2013. Among her publications are the collections Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads (2022); Fashion and Modernism (2018); Harry bit för bit (2017); Fashion, Film, and the 1960s (2017); Mode och modernism (2014); Nordic Fashion Studies (2011); and MODE (2009).

Frantzeska Papadopoulou is Professor of Intellectual Property Rights at the Law Faculty, Stockholm University, Sweden. She is the editor-in-chief of the Stockholm Intellectual Property Law Review and a member of the Advisory Board of the National Library of Sweden. She is the author of several books and articles such as "Evergreening Patent Exclusivity in Pharmaceutical Products" (2021) and "The Protection of Traditional Knowledge in Genetic Resources" (2017).

Maaret Koskinen is Professor in Film Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. She was also film critic in Sweden's largest daily Dagens Nyheter (1981-2011) and Board Member of the Swedish Film Institute (2011-2016). Her latest publication is "Involuntary Dogma restrictions: Orca and COVID-19 screen culture" (2021). Other publications include Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads (2022); Ingmar Bergman y sus primeros escritos. En el principio era la palabra (2017); and Ingmar Bergman's THE SILENCE. Pictures in the Typewriter, Writings on the Screen (2010).

Tytti Soila is Professor Emeritus in Film Studies and former Vice Dean at the Faculty of Humanities Stockholm University, Sweden. She is the editor of Stellar Encounters. Stardom in European Film (2009) and The Cinema of Scandinavia (2005). Her most recent publications include "Featuring Monica Zetterlund: Jazz in early Swedish television" (2021); "Ingrid Bergman" (2019); and "Activism, ideals and film criticism in the 70s Sweden" (2019).