Private Screening The Other Woman National Arts Club March 6, 2007 Written by Wendy R. Williams Photographed by Nik Rocklin (Opposite Photo - Filmmakers Mikael Sodersten and Cornelia Ravenal)

One blustery day in March, the beautiful and historic National Arts Club in Gramercy Park (the location for many films such as Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery) hosted a private showing of Mikael Sodersten and Cornelia Ravenal's film The Other Woman, starring Juliette Bennett and Christian Pedersen. The film was screened in a downstairs ballroom-sized chamber. Afterwards there was a Q & A with the director Mikael Sodersten, Mikael's producer/writer/wife Cornelia Ravenal and film stars Juliette Bennett and Christian Pedersen. There was an illustrious crowd in attendance including playwright John Patrick Shanley; Avignon Film Festival Director Jerome Henry Rudes; international recording star Kaissa; and film producer Maria Snyder. A champagne reception followed the post-screening Q&A session.

Here is a quote from the film notes: "Women who choose independent and unconventional lives often end up in places they could never have anticipated. Yet given the choices they've made and the risks they've taken, their lives make sense. Shot in New York, Stockholm and India, The Other Woman (18 min.) is about a young woman’s fascination with the worldly older woman her fiancé has had an affair with – and the chance meeting that changes her life."

The Other Woman is a take on the age old story of an affair between an attractive young man and sophisticated older women. Juliette Bennett's character Lila is both in the film. We see her as the young woman who steals a man (Martin, played by the charming Christian Pedersen) from his older lover (Joanna played by Katerina Huldt) and then a decade or so later, we see her filling the role of the older female fatale for another young man (a grad student played by Chris Stack).

The film is charming and thoughtful. The filmmakers have created a short character-driven film that manages to embody the theories of Aristotle's poetics. And that is quite a feat for a low budget (many of the scenes were shot in the director/producer's apartment) eighteen minute film. The film features a budding star in Ms. Bennett; she does a beautiful job of portraying a young woman who leaves the cocoon of romance and marriage to become a sophisticated femme fatale.

For more information on the film, log onto: theotherwoman2007.com

Juliette Bennett and John Patrick Shanley

Cornelia Ravenal, Juliette Bennett, Mikael Sodersten
and Christian Pedersen


Christian Pedersen, Kaissa and Juliette Bennett