CONFESSIONS OF A SWEDISH MAN

In 2019, Swedish filmmaker Hampus Linder, a single father and self-proclaimed feminist, travels to an anti-feminist men’s retreat in Denmark. Rather than remaining an outside observer, he participates in the exercises and listens to men who consider feminism one of the main causes of their problems. Filmed over six years, his journey through the manosphere reveals, beneath the anger, a profound loneliness and need for belonging. Through a participatory and self-reflexive approach, Linder stays close to the men’s sometimes unsettling rituals, placing the viewer inside situations that are disturbing, but also unexpectedly humorous. Gradually, his investigation turns back on himself. Filmmaking gives him a sense of control, while becoming a means of examining his own masculinity, his relationship with his father and the model he may be passing on to his son. Without either validating or dismissing the men he encounters, the film turns a polarized social debate into a personal inquiry into what it means to be a man today.