Ruben ÖSTLUND

Director, Script Writer, Actor

Sweden

Ruben ÖSTLUND © Julien Lienard / Getty Images

After studying cinema in Gothenburg, he directed his first feature film, The Guitar Mongoloid, in 2004. On the edge of the documentary genre, the film describes the intersecting destinies of outcasts in a fictional city that closely resembles Gothenburg. Humor as a tool of sociological description is already apparent.
His next short film, Autobiographical Scene Number 6882, gathers all the ingredients of his future work, which are affirmed in Involuntary, a feature film selected at Un Certain Regard in 2008. Östlund positions the camera at a relevant distance to better observe human behavior: small weaknesses and major flaws caused by group dynamics are then dissected to the point of discomfort. His third feature film, Play, which was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2011, describes harassment between youth gangs. When it was released in Sweden it gave rise to a major debate across Swedish society.
In Force Majeure, which was screened at Un Certain Regard in 2014, the situation takes on the aspect of an avalanche where a father prefers to take cover rather than save his wife and children: how can he accept the aftermath, in bad faith and in fear of losing face? Such is the issue that the director examines with ferocious acidity.
Ruben Östlund repeatedly explores a provocative dialectic which has become his signature: an initial situation sets the stage for a sociological examination where the baser instincts of our humanity are painstakingly and uncompromisingly examined with corrosive humor.
In 2017, in The Square, he tells the fictional story of an artistic experiment he conducted in his native country. The film addresses brilliantly the boundaries of public space, art and the animal aspects within ourselves. Finally, in 2022, Triangle of Sadness chronicles a cruise ship caught in a storm that reshuffles the cards of class struggle in Western societies in a nauseating hullabaloo.

Jury attendance

  • President Feature films, 2023
  • Member Un Certain Regard, 2016

Feature films

CHAMBRE 999

Cannes Classics, 2023Actor

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

In Competition - Feature Films, 2022Director, Screenplay, Editing

SEARCHING FOR INGMAR BERGMAN

Cannes Classics, 2018Actor

THE SQUARE

In Competition - Feature Films, 2017Director, Screenplay, Editing

TURIST

Un Certain Regard, 2014Director

DE OFRIVILLIGA

Un Certain Regard, 2008Editing, Director, Screenplay

Awards

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

In Competition - Feature Films, 2022
2022 Palme d'or2022 CST Award for Technical Artist
Director, Screenplay, Editing

THE SQUARE

In Competition - Feature Films, 2017
2017 Palme d'or2017 Vulcain Prize for an artist technician, awarded by the C.S.T.
Director, Screenplay, Editing

TURIST

(FORCE MAJEURE) Un Certain Regard, 2014
2014 Jury's Prize - Un Certain Regard
Director