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Swedish filmmaker (born 1974)
Ruben Östlund
Ruben Östlund in 2014
Born
(1974-04-13) 13 April 1974 (age 50) Styrsö, Sweden
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.
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. Alissa Wilkinson of Vox described the film as "Burying self-referential allusions in the background and merrily poking viewers till they bruise, The Square at times feels more like longform performance art than a narrative film. It’s social satire by way of art-world comedy, and no woke participant is exempt from its barbs."
In 2020, he received the King's medal in gold for significant efforts in Swedish film.
Östlund has been in a relationship with fashion photographer Sina Görcz since 2014 and has a son called Elias. He was previously married to his director colleague Andrea Östlund. They divorced in 2008 and have twin daughters, Alva and Hilda, together. Östlund was 28 when he became a father for the first time and was working on The Guitar Mongoloid, his first feature film.