This summer at Scandinavia House, see the critically acclaimed Nordic films that inspired American remakes in the series “The Nordics Do It Better”! You’ve seen the Hollywood version — did you know how good the original was?
On August 2, see Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s wickedy funny and precisely observed psychodrama Force Majeure /Turist, which in 2020 was adapted in the U.S. as the film Downhill starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell. Swedish businessman Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), his willowy wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their two blond children seem to be a model family during their skiing holiday in the French Alps.
But one perfect, sunny ski day, the family is enjoying lunch at a mountainside when disaster strikes — an avalanche threatens to bury them along with diners at a mountainside restaurant. As people flee in all directions and as his wife and children panic, Tomas makes a decision that will shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as family patriarch.
Force Majeure questions some of our guarded truths: What if you learn that you are not the person you thought you were?
“Östlund and his superb cast have made an odd, gripping movie. Let it rock your world” (London Evening Standard)
“A unique high-wire balancing act” (Esquire)
About Ruben Östlund
Ruben Östlund was born in 1974 in Styrsö, a small island on the West Coast of Sweden. He studied graphic design before enrolling at the University of Gothenburg, where he met Erik Hemmendorff, with whom he later founded Plattform Produktion. His feature debut The Guitar Mongoloid won the FIPRESCI Award in Moscow in 2005 and was followed by his films Involuntary, 2008; Incident By a Bank, 2010, a short film in which every camera movement was computer generated in post-production, and a Golden Bear winner in Berlin; and Play, 2011, which won multiple awards and distinctions, including nomination for the LUX prize of the European Parliament and winner of the Nordic Prize, the highest distinction in Scandinavia. His fourth feature film, Force Majeure, premiered at Un Certain Regard in Cannes, where it was awarded the Jury Prize.
Force Majeure was selected in countless festivals and won 16 Best Foreign film awards, and was also nominated at the Golden Globes and shortlisted for an Oscar®. The film has been distributed in over 70 countries. 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. In 2020, he received the King’s medal in gold for significant efforts in Swedish film. Afterwards, he pursued the project Triangle of Sadness, a satirical film about the wealthy elite, winning his second Palme d’Or in 2022 as well as Best Director at the Guldbaggens gala. Triangle of Sadness also received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.