03/09/2014 - Ruben Östlund has entered the nomination race for the second time with Force Majeure, and is to be celebrated in New York and Minneapolis

Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (Turist) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile], which received the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, will represent Sweden in the nomination race for the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film. It is Östlund’s second run for the nomination, after Involuntary [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Hemmendorff
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile] (2009).

In the wake of the Cannes presentation of Force Majeure, Paris-based international sales agency Coproduction Office licensed the film to more than 40 territories, including the US, where Magnolia Pictures will release it theatrically on 24 October. To celebrate the occasion, the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will screen a retrospective of Östlund’s first ten years in feature filmmaking, before it embarks on a three-month North American tour.

The Erik Hemmendorff and Marie Kjellson production for Sweden's Plattform Produktion was launched domestically on 15 August by TriArt Film; before the US venture, it will unspool as a Special Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival (4-14 September) and in competition at the 50^th-anniversary Chicago International Film Festival (9-23 October).

Östlund's fourth feature, which he also scripted, tells the story of “wealthy Swedes losing their dignity”. Starring Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli and Vincent Wettergren, it follows a Swedish family on a skiing holiday as they come into contact with human mechanisms that they have never had to confront before, forced to ascribe impulses and instincts to themselves, which they have previously learnt to despise and ignore. According to the director, it includes the most spectacular avalanche scene in film history.