For festival questions, contact: Gunnar Almér, Swedish Film Institute: gunnar.almer@sfi.se
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If you want to get in contact with the producion company, contact: info@lebox.se

SHORT SYNOPSIS

Mia (Ruth Vega Fernandez) and Frida (Liv Mjönes), both in their thirties, meet each other for the first time at their parents' engagement party. Mia's father, Lasse (Krister Henriksson), is about to get married to Frida's mother, Elizabeth (Lena Endre), which will make Mia and Frida stepsisters. Lasse's daughter, Mia, has not visited her father in years and arrives with her boyfriend, Tim (Joakim Nätterqvist), with whom she is about to get married. As Mia and Frida get to know one another, strong emotions begin to stir between them. Their relationship will turn everything upside down for everyone close to them with dramatic consequences.


TRAILER






PRODUCER'S BIOGRAPHY

Josefine Tengblad - producer and actor, born 1978, has worked with Lars von Trier's "Dogville" and "Manderlay". She also worked with 23 feature films about the Swedish crime detective "Wallander" based on Henning Mankell's best selling books. 2010 she started her own production company Lebox where she has produced "Kyss Mig". Josefine has produced and acted in several theatre productions, and currently she works as an executive producer at the Swedish TV channel TV4 with film and drama.


DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Alexandra-Therese Keining – director and screenwriter, born 1976, Debuted with the feature film "Hot Dog" (2003) as Sweden's youngest female director and screenwriter. Productions: "Kyss mig" (2010), "Elegia" (2010) and "Hot Dog" (2003) In addition to writer and director Alexandra is also working as a playwright and casting director.


AWARDS

- Audience award, Vues d'en face, Grenoble

- Audience award, Breakthrough section, AFI Los Angeles FF

- Lorens Award - Göteborg International Film Festival
The producer Josefine Tengblad was awarded Lorenspriset for Kyss mig (Kiss Me) at Göteborg International FIlm Festival. The prize, which was awarded by Stockholm Postproduction and goes to one of the producers for 2011's Swedish feature films, consists of free development of the winning producer's next feature film. The prize is worth circa 500,000 SEK.
Motivation: "This extremely creative producer has, by starting with her own life experiences and with a passionate conviction and courage, succeeded to engage the director, the actors, and the crew to collaboratively create a touching, dense, and beautiful film. The jury is impressed! The Lorens Award 2012 goes to Josefine Tengblad who receives the award for her work with the film Kiss Me (Kyss mig)."


FESTIVALS

2011
Lübeck: in competition
AFI Los Angeles: Breakthrough section
Camerimage: Feature debuts competition

2012
Palm Springs
Portland
Sydney Mardi Gras
Melbourne Queer
Roze Filmdagen Amsterdam
Febio
Cleveland
London gay
Out in Africa
Artichoke Helsinki
Grenoble vue d'en face
Brisbane Queer
Torino gay
Queer Zagreb
Tel Aviv LGBT
Budapest pride
Viet Pride
Espoo
Tokyo gay
Oslo gay
Zurich
Bologna lesbian
Out On Screen: Vancouver BC
Durango Independent Film Fest, Durango CO
Out on Film, Avondale GA
Boston Gay & Lesbian FF
Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
Prairie Pride Film Festival, Lincoln NE
Aiea HI
Q Cinema, Ft Worth TX
Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival
Creative Alliance at The Patterson
ImageOut: Rochester LGBT Film and Video Festival
Out On Screen. Rochester NY
Out Twin Cities Film Fest, Minneapolis MN
North Louisiana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
Queer City Cinema, Regina SK
Denver Film Society
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Out Film CT
North Louisiana G&L FF
Provincetown International Film Festival
The Center Long Beach
Indiana Cares Campaign
White Sands International Film Festival
OUTFEST
Philadelphia QFest
Teaneck Int'l Film Festival
Arizona International Film Festival
Louisville LGBT Film Festival
Utah Film Center
Hawaii International Film Festival
PUERTO RICO QUEER FILMFEST
THE NEON, Dayton OH
OUT at the Movies, Winston-Salem, NC
Three Dollar Bill Cinema 
Brookline, VT
Spokane Film Fest
Tallgrass Film Association, Wichita KS
Sacramento International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
Outflix Film Festival, Memphis TN
Out Twin Cities Film Fest, Minneapolis MN
Philadelphia Cinema Alliance
aGLIFF
Paradise Valley Community College, Phoenix AZ
Long Beach, CA  
Fabulous Independent Film Fest, Sarasota FL
Indy Pride, Indianapolis IN
Newfest
The Palm Springs Cultural Center
ATHENA FILM FESTIVAL, Brooklyn NY
Mill Valley Film Festival
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Portland, OR
Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Roanoke, VA
image+nation.festival 
Fresno LGBT Film Fest
Three Dollar Bill Cinema, Seattle WA
San Francisco, CA
OUTrageous Film Festival, Santa Barbara CA
Women and Hollywood
Cucalorus Film Festival


MAIN CAST

Ruth Vega Fernandez
Liv Mjönes
Krister Henriksson
Lena Endre
Joakim Nätterqvist
Josefine Tengblad
Tom Ljungman

Ruth Vega Fernandez, who plays MIA, was born in 1977. She has in addition to Kiss Me appeared in several Swedish films including Call Girl by Michael Marcimain and A Midsommer of Love by Staffan Lindberg. She has also played roles in TV series such as Johan Falk, Wallander and How Soon Is Now.

Lena Endre, born 1955, plays ELISABETH in Kiss Me. She had her breakthrough in Swedish television in the 1980s. Since then she has acted in a number of theatre plays, TV-series and feature films. She has worked with Ingmar Bergman and starred in the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Wallander-series.

Krister Henriksson, born 1946, portrays the character LASSE in Kiss Me. He is best known for playing the lead role in the Swedish series about Kurt Wallander. He has had a flourishing career since 1973 and has besides Wallander starred in several Swedish plays, films and TV-series.

Liv Mjönes, FRIDA in Kiss Me, was born in 1979. She started her filming career in 2003 with the Swedish comedy Miffo. Since then she has starred in television and features along playing in the theatres.


DIRECTOR'S COMMENT

Sexual identity is a rigorous part of us, possibly even bigger than we can ever imagine.

Or perhaps choose to imagine, even. It only goes as far as we want and allow it to, until one day when it makes an individual choice that we can no longer control.

We feel helpless, powerless. We are in love. And in love, there is no control.

Not in the beginning, at least. When the control is lost, the emotional walls inside of us start to break and fall. During this time, we often go through powerful changes, weather we like it or not. Kiss Me – With Every Heartbeat is just such a story.

A fast-paced introduction is given in the first act of the main characters, their relationship to one another and dramatic motivations for being in the story. The main character Mia is introduced as a strong and independent young woman, secure in the happy relationship with boyfriend Tim, but also caught in a bad relationship with her father Lasse, his new woman Elisabeth and her daughter Frida. Her younger brother Oskar represents the balance in the emotional chaos between his father and older sister.

The engagement party between Lasse and Elisabeth gives an enjoyable shine to the opening sequence as it sets the mood for the first and a good part of the second act. Soon, the dynamics between Frida and Mia will dominate the story, but with three important dramatic storylines; 1) The relationship with Tim 2) The relationship with her father and 3) The relationship between Lasse and Elisabeth.

To fall in love in someone that one is not supposed to feel something for or even fall in love with, is the most horrible state of mind in this story. The first two acts of the film is portraying that same feeling, a state of total confusion and excitement, all mixed into one ambivalent experience. In short, intense drama between few, very skilled, actors.

Most part of act two is set on the ferry to the Danish and idyllic island of Fyn. The new setting is making the sneaking around between Mia and Frida possible and also the secrecy of their affair undiscovered. The character arch of Mia makes a leap, a new personality trait is being exposed and an overall change begins to takes place.

On the island, isolated in a cottage, Mia and Frida discover each others feelings. The following montage which follows must convey a clear and understandable union between the two women. For Mia, this is the time when she rediscovers that hidden part of her sexuality as she understands her true feelings for Frida through their lovemaking. She awakens through Frida and can hardly believe what has happened.

As Mia kisses Frida for the first time, a new path is created in their lives. They have very different understandings about this new path because they don't fight against the same problems and don't posses the same emotional balance. Mia knows that she's betraying Tim while Frida fights the quilt over lying to her mother and Lasse. Here, the scenery consists of a powerful mix between tight dialogues in interiors and wide exteriors in the breathtaking landscape by the coast. Obviously, their relationship intensifies in isolation, which Frida finds very frustrating.

Mia herself is submerging into further bad quilt and yet she can't resist Frida.

As act three begins, the story moves to Stockholm where Mia escapes in panic. Their relationship has now created a split between Lasse and Elisabeth and things will never be the same. Elisabeth has moved out of the house as Lasse's reaction to the discovery shocks and upsets her.

She tries, but soon realizes that the relationship with Tim can't be saved. Love has really hit her, there's no where left to hide. She can't stop thinking about Frida. Though they're far away from each other, Frida and Mia appear in each others life through mental images. Voices, dreams and rapid cuts between their daily lives.

The bittersweet raps around the ending like an emotional filter. Mia has gone through a deep and personal change. She is no longer the same person whom we meet in the beginning of the film. She is now without a safety net and without control over her life. In addition to this, she is well aware of the fact that she has ruined her father's relationship and fled the consequences. The infected relation with Lasse is now an open wound and she must confront it. She finally decides to take action and goes through a painful break-up with Tim.

Dramatic stories and films of this genre usually have a mark of happy endings around them. Not this one. Though, there's a definite ending and a sense of hope for the characters. Their problems will work themselves out, but later in the future and the solutions are not intended for our eyes. If we want them to find happiness, then they will.

So, the last scene begins. Here, subtle hints are given, but very little is concluded. It's up to the audience to interpret the ending and what will happen to Mia and Frida, but as far as the last image of them goes, the future looks very promising...

I wanted to make a drama, a lovestory with a provocative twist and there weren't a lot of them around. I had written a few moody and dark screenplays, and I just felt like I wanted to make a film about love. I was in New York during the spring and I became really inspired for some reason. I knew that I had to make a film about two women falling in love. And unlike most feature films with a lesbian theme, I wanted the story to have a positive vibe to it. Some people did warn me, though, about making this film. I was told that my career would be ruined.

"Kiss me" is important because we need more mainstream films with lesbian/gay/queer/trans-­themes that may be accessed in an easy way, as well. And by a straight audience, too. It is a realistic story with a very simple premise to it. There is really nothing new with the dramatic set-­up of "Kiss Me" which is also the point. It was a very long and hard fight from start to end to make the film in Sweden. To let the characters stay they way I had written them. To let the scenes where Mia and Frida express their love not be cut from the film and not be forced to downplay the premise of the film. It's a love story about relations and acceptance, not only between two persons, but also within the dynamics of a family and most importantly, the love for oneself.

Straight people seem to find this film just as entertaining as a gay audience. My intention was to be sincere. And I think that comes across to the audience.

Hopefully, one feels that its told with a genuine voice of trying to show that fragile state of falling in love and the complications within that emotion. Some people just love a happy ending, others don't. Straight or gay.


PRODUCER'S COMMENT

What happens when a grown-up woman is knocked off her feet by a love and passion beyond all senses?

"Kiss me" is a film about something very simple; it is a story about love. Love for a partner, love for your family but most of all love and respect for yourself. To have the courage to take your own feelings serious and act the way your heart tells you to.

When two people meet and fall in love with each other, things can seem very easy but for our main character, Mia, her life is turned up side down and everyone around her questions not only her choice to leave her boyfriend for someone else, but also who she is and if her feelings are real. All that because her new love is a woman.

My vision with this film is to show Mia and Frida's love for each other in a universal way. I didn't want to make a gayfilm. I wanted to make a film about love. Love that happens to be between two women. Our goal was to make a lovestory that different kinds of people should be able to relate and I am happy to say that it really seems like we succeed in that. Women, men, young, old and from different parts of the world seems to embrace Mia and Frida's destiny and relate it to their own lovelife no matter if they are gay or straight.

I met the director Alexandra-Therese Keining in 2007. Alexandra is born and raised in Sweden but educated in USA and I was interested in working with her since I think she has a unique way of combining the Scandinavian way and the American way of telling a story. The deep and seriousness is combined with the American lightness in her filmmaking, mixed with a lot of irony. She has the ability to tell a story in a way that is very effective and natural.

By the time I met Alexandra I was married to a man but I had just fallen in love with someone else; a woman. I knew I wanted to change my life somehow, but had no idea how to start. I told Alexandra about my situation and she showed me a treatment of 30 pages with a story similar to mine. That was the start of "Kiss me". My life changed as we did the movie.


PRESS KIT

Downlad press kit (PDF)


ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

Curve Magazine
After Ellen
Inside Out
Phil on Film
Film Fracture
Yam Magazine
Lesbian News


PICTURES

Click on a picture to download a high resolution version. When published, state the name of the photographer.

Producer Josefine Tengblad Photo by Shahab Salehi

Director Alexandra-Therese Keining Photo by Camilla S Larsson

Photos from the film by Ragna Jorming:

Press Photos by Rolf Konow: