Sally and Freedom / Sally och friheten (1981) dir. Gunnel Lindblom

Sally, a 28-year-old social worker who has just broken up from a ten-year marriage. She seeks freedom, but has trouble living alone. She soon finds a new man, lawyer Jonas, but Sally knows that the past is chasing her and do things more difficult for her freedom quest. The difficult balancing act between the desire to have a career and enjoy a full family life at the same time, and the tendency of feelings of freedom to lead to a feeling of rootlessness, pervade [Gunnel Lindblom’s] second film, Sally and Freedom (Sally och friheten, 1981). Even though this film, with its screenplay by Margareta Garpe, is more than 30 years old its themes are just as relevant now as they were then. What characterises Lindblom as a filmmaker is the fact that she wants to take up important current issues that she feels strongly about without preaching to her audience about what is right or wrong. Instead, she provides a complex picture of difficult and life-changing decisions in a thought-provoking way.