Ruben Östlund is an accomplished Swedish film director and screenwriter.
His films Force Majeure (2014) and the satirical picture The Square (2017) were critically acclaimed and won awards at Cannes Film Fest, including the Palme d’Or for the latter.
Östlund was born in Styrsö, Gothenburg Municipality, Sweden. After high school, he worked in various ski resorts in the Alps during the winter seasons.
There he started filming his friends ski stunts, and later got work on a production company.
He studied 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 co-founded the production company Plattform Produktion.
His first four feature-length fiction films were The Guitar Mongoloid (2004), Involuntary (2008), Play (2011), and Force Majeure (2014).
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 Grand Prix at Tampere Film Festival in 2011.
Force Majeure
His film Force Majeure competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2014 Cannes Fest, where it won 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 made a humorous video of his response to missing the nomination.
In 2016, he was a member of the jury for the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes.
The Square
In 2017, his film The Square, loosely inspired by his own experiences and art installation with Kalle Boman, competed at the Cannes Film Fest, where it ultimately won the prestigious Palme d’Or.
Afterwards, he pursued the project Triangle of Sadness, a film about fashion models.
He received in the 2020 king’s medal in gold for significant efforts in Swedish film.
Filmography (1993-Present)
1993 Addicted Skiing film
1997 Free Radicals Skiing film
1998 Free Radicals 2 Skiing film
2000 Låt dom andra sköta kärleken Documentary
2002 Family Again Familj igen Documentary
2004 The Guitar Mongoloid Gitarrmongot Fiction feature
2005 Autobiographical Scene Number 6882 Scen nr: 6882 ur mitt liv Fiction short
2008 Involuntary De ofrivilliga Fiction feature
2009 Incident by a Bank Händelse vid bank Fiction short
2011 Play Fiction feature
2014 Force Majeure, Fiction feature
2017 The Square Fiction feature
2022 Triangle of Sadness Fiction feature
