Description
RUBEN ÖSTLUND BIOGRAPHY :
Ruben Östlund (born 13 April 1974) is a Swedish filmmaker. His film Force Majeure (2014) was critically acclaimed. His later films The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022) also received positive reviews and won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Palme d’Or for each. Östlund was born in Styrsö, Gothenburg Municipality, Sweden. After high school, he started working in various ski resorts in the Alps during the winter seasons. While in the Alps, he began making skiing videos for his friends, which helped him obtain a job at a local production company. He went on to study at the film school in Gothenburg, graduating in 2001. He was accepted to the school based on his skiing films. Together with film producer Erik Hemmendorff, he is the co-founder of the production company Plattform Produktion, which produces his films. His first three feature-length fiction films were The Guitar Mongoloid (2004), Involuntary (2008) and Play (2011). The Guitar Mongoloid won the FIPRESCI Award at the 27th Moscow International Film Festival. Östlund’s short film Incident by a Bank won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival and the Grand Prix at Tampere Film Festival in 2011. In 2014, his film Force Majeure was selected to compete in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, winning the Jury Prize. Sweden then submitted Force Majeure for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. After the Academy shortlisted but did not nominate it, Östlund released a humorous video of his response to missing the nomination list. In 2016, he was a member of the jury for the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes. In 2017, his film The Square, loosely inspired by some of his own experiences and art installation with Kalle Boman, competed at the Cannes Film Festival, where it ultimately won the Palme d’Or. In 2020, he received the King’s medal in gold for significant efforts in Swedish film. Afterwards, he pursued the project Triangle of Sadness, a satirical film about the wealthy elite, winning his second Palme d’Or in 2022.
