Set Sail with Ruben Östlund: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

The American Cinematheque is proud to welcome acclaimed filmmaker Ruben Östlund in-person for an all-day retrospective at the Los Feliz 3. Östlund joins us to discuss three of his critically acclaimed films, including FORCE MAJEURE and his two Palme d’Or winning films, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS and THE SQUARE, and will present a Sunday Print Edition screening of Luis Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA.

Ruben Östlund was born in 1974 and grew up on an island on the West Coast of Sweden. He studied at the University of Gothenburg where he met Erik Hemmendorff with whom he later founded Plattform Produktion. An avid skier, Östlund directed three ski films, alluding to his taste for long sequence shots, a taste he structured and developed throughout his film studies and which to this day remains an important trademark of his work. Östlund’s feature debut THE GUITAR MONGOLOID (2005) won the FIPRESCI Award at Moscow Film Festival. All of Östlund’s subsequent feature films premiered at Cannes, starting with his second feature INVOLUNTARY (2008), which premiered in Un Certain Regard. Östlund won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his short film INCIDENT BY A BANK (2010). This short film provided the opportunity for him to experiment with techniques and style. This experimentation would become apparent in his third feature PLAY (2011), which premiered at Cannes in the Directors’ Fortnight. It went on to win the Nordic Film Prize (the most important Scandinavian prize). His fourth feature FORCE MAJEURE (2014) premiered in Un Certain Regard and won the Jury Prize. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe and shortlisted for an Oscar. Östlund returned to Cannes with his fifth feature THE SQUARE (2017), which was selected in Official Competition and won the Palme d’Or. It was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar.

Palme d’Or winner, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS,  reveals the tawdry relationship between power and beauty. Celebrity model couple, Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), are invited on a luxury cruise for the uber-rich, helmed by an unhinged boat captain (Woody Harrelson). What first appeared instagrammable ends catastrophically, leaving the survivors stranded on a desert island and fighting for survival.