The news falls in the early morning, sharp as a cleaver. It is indeed the Swede Ruben Östlund, a great renderer of the puffiness and turpitude of Western society, already the holder of two Palmes d’Or, who will officiate at the head of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival, during its 76th edition which will be held from May 16 to 27.
Born in Styrsö, aged 48, author of six feature films made since 2004, Östlund is a filmmaker whose taste for uneasy satire and robust appetite for the sordid divide viewers quite deeply. He is nevertheless a “creature”, so to speak, of the Cannes Film Festival who, striking the iron while it is hot, does not fail to recall it by appointing him this year president of the jury.
Happy Sweden – an essay in Swedish entomology applied to its nationals – thus found itself in the official Un Certain Regard selection in 2008. directors in 2011. Snow Therapy – a father abandons his family after an avalanche – appeared again in Un certain regard in 2014.
“Happy, proud and humbled”
More recently, Le Square (2017) – stained glass of the contemporary art world – then Without Filter (2022) – a scatological addendum to Karl Marx’s Capital – won the Palmes d’or available during their competition. We sometimes hear that going through the Cannes Film Festival, including the Palme d’Or, would no longer be likely to influence the success of a film or a career. In this case, it would be necessary to compare the figures for Östlund’s first and last film distributed in France – 1,370 spectators for Happy Sweden, 568,000 for Without Filter – to be convinced that the martingale is highly recommendable.
The lucky winner, who will therefore preside over the destinies of the next Cannes competitors, declared on learning of his appointment: “I am happy, proud and humbled to see myself entrusted with the honor of presiding over the jury of the Festival de Cannes this year. No other place in the world sparks such a desire for cinema when the curtain goes up on a film in competition. How fortunate to be there with these fine connoisseurs who are the Cannes festival-goers. I sincerely believe that the culture of cinema is going through a crucial period. Cinema is unique. We share it. Looking together demands more of the thing depicted and increases the intensity of the experience. It sends us back something so different than the dopamine secreted by scrolling through individual screens. »