Swedish film director Ruben Östlund, winner of the last Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with The Triangulo de la tristeza, will preside over the jury for this year's edition, which will take place from May 16 to 27, as announced by the organization in a statement.
Östlund will be the president of the festival's jury and the second Swede to hold such responsibility, 50 years after Ingrid Bergman.
The director has shown himself happy and proud for his choice since for him, Cannes arouses "such a desire for cinema when the curtain rises for a film in competition". "I sincerely believe -he adds- that film culture is going through a crucial period. Cinema is unique. It is shared. Watching together demands more of what is shown and intensifies the experience. This leads us to something very different from that dopamine secreted by the parade of individual screens".
Östlund was the big winner of the last edition thanks to a light and unbridled satire on the superficiality of capitalist culture and the devotion to selfies. But in 2017 he had already won his first Palme d'Or for the also satirical The Square, in which he attacked the art world.
The Swedish director studied film in Göteborg and in 2004 his first feature film came out, The Guitar Mongoloid, with documentary overtones, in which he described the crossed destinies of marginal characters with a humor that has later characterized his cinematography.
In 2008, Happy Sweden was selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. Two years later, Incident by a Bank won the Golden Bear for best short film at the Berlinale with an analysis of the reactions of people passing by to a bank robbery.
As president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, Östlund says that he will remind his colleagues of "the role of cinema" because in his opinion "a good film also connects with the collective experience, stimulates reflection and makes you want to discuss. So, Let's go see movies together."
