Svenska flickor i Paris (Swedish Girls in Paris) (1962) Barbro Boman & Peter Weiss

Towards the end of the 1950s [Barbro] Boman moved to Copenhagen where she worked in the theatre and also made films about the Danish childcare system. In 1961 she was back on the Swedish film scene with her feature film The Flamboyant Sex (Svenska flickor i Paris). In it she took up the problem of naïve young Swedish girls who moved to Paris with all manner of unrealistic dreams. Following its premiere in Stockholm, the film was totally panned by the critics, and Bo Widerberg wrote that: “almost in its entirety, the film is a wretched affair”. It was made in collaboration with Peter Weiss. In the film’s opening credits there is no mention of a director, but in the reviews it was stated that Boman had directed the actors and Weiss had been in charge of the cinematography, yet Weiss subsequently toned down his involvement. He insisted that he had only been involved as an editor and that he had contributed to some of the images. Not only that, he had left the production before it was finished because of differences of opinion. Boman, who had written the screenplay, is now acknowledged to be the most important originator of the film, even though she claimed that Weiss had been considerably more involved in the film than he himself was willing to admit. She too was subsequently dissatisfied with the film, but unfortunately she never got the chance to redeem herself. ()