Arguably Mai Zetterling’s most autobiographical film, The Girls depicts a trio of female artists attempting to balance their professional careers, domestic lives, and political convictions in pursuit of creative and personal integrity. Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, and Gunnel Lindblom play actors who struggle to satisfy the demands of both the stage and their families while starring in a production of Lysistrata. When a hostile audience rejects their interpretation of Aristophanes’s radical portrayal of female solidarity, the women dissolve the boundaries between art and life in an act of defiance that raises profound questions about the relationship between representational performance and social responsibility. (Mai Zetterling, Sweden, 1968, 100 min., b&w) In Swedish with English subtitles