By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

IN CASE OF NO EMERGENCY: RETROSPECTIVE OF THE FILMS OF RUBEN ÖSTLUND

FIRST MAJOR TOURING RETROSPECTIVE OF FILMMAKER’S CAREER TRAVELING TO 15 CITIES 

RETROSPECTIVE FEATURES 2 U.S. PREMIERES, AND WEEKLONG RUNS IN NY OF CRITICALLY  ACCLAIMED MOVIES “PLAY”AND”INVOLUNTARY” AND SPECIAL SCREENING OF THE GOLDEN GLOBE-NOMINATED, ACADEMY AWARDS CONTENDER
“FORCE MAJEURE”

 

New York, NY (December 12, 2014) – Comeback Company announced today “In Case of No Emergency:  The Films of Ruben Östlund,”the first major retrospective of the Swedish filmmaker, whose latest film FORCE MAJEURE is Sweden’s official entry to the Academy Awards®

and was just nominated for a Golden Globe® for Best Foreign Language Film.  Focusing on the shorts and features from the first 10 years of Östlund’s career, the retrospective launches a 15 city tour of the nation’s top art house cinemas with Los Angeles’ The Cinefamily onJanuary 9th and New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center on January 14. Östlund will appear in person at special screenings in New York; Los Angeles; AFI Silver Theatre in Maryland; and at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. As part of their ongoing program Filmmakers in Conversation, the Walker Art Center extended on-stage conversation between Ruben Östlund and guest moderator Dennis Lim (Director of Programming at the Film Society of Lincoln Center). The video recording of this program will be made available online through walkerart.org.

A sly, trenchant observer of human behavior under duress, Swedish director Ruben Östlund is quickly emerging as one of world cinema’s most distinctive voices, equal parts satirist and anthropologist. Östlund, who began his career in the 1990s directing skiing films, has for the past decade been collecting prizes at major festivals, including Cannes, where his latest, the widely acclaimed FORCE MAJEURE, took the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard competition. Two of his four features have been chosen as the official Swedish Oscar entry: 2008’s INVOLUNTARY and this year’s FORCE MAJEURE.

 

In Östlund’s bracing, darkly comedic movies, modern life takes shape as a series of simultaneously devastating and absurd crises, the civilized veneer of Western bourgeois society barely concealing all manner of foibles and prejudices. His deconstructions of ego and privilege are elegant provocations, designed to defy easy identification and, in his words, “make the audience take a moral stand on its own.”  This year, he was appointed Professor of Film at the Göteborg University, Akademi Valand. This touring retrospective is produced by Comeback Company, in partnership with the Swedish Film Institute and Plattform Produktion and with additional support from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, the Embassy of Sweden in the U.S., and the Consulate General of Sweden in New York. Details about the touring retrospective available at www.comebackcompany.com/rubenostlund.

 

Ruben Östlund said:  “It’s been 10 years since I directed my first feature film, and it’s an honor to begin the next decade with a retrospective of my work.  I believe that the influence of the moving images on humans is extremely strong. Those that we encounter change our way of looking at life and the way we behave. For those of us who work as directors, it means a responsibility. Therefore, it is important to have a critical discussion about the content and the motives we have when we make a movie. My films are often considered provocative and that makes it stimulating and challenging to meet the audience’s reactions. During this tour, I’m looking forward to discussing my choices and why I have made them.”

 

Irena Kovarova, film programmer, producer, and owner of Comeback Company said: “Ruben Östlund is an uncompromising filmmaker with a remarkable body of work. He’s finally gaining much deserved and widespread recognition with his latest film FORCE MAJEURE.  Our ambition is to show that his newest film is building on strong foundations and is no fluke, and spread the word throughout North America with this touring retrospective.”

 

The venues will screen the retrospective in this order:
 *       The Cinefamily, Los Angeles, CA -January 9-18
*       Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, NY -January 14-22
*       AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, Silver Spring, MD                 (Washington DC area) -January 15 – February 28
 *       Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN -January 17-18
*       Austin Film Society, Austin, TX -January 23-27
*       Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA -January 28-31
*       Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA -February 5-8
*       Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA -February            12-26
*       Jacob Burns Film Center, Pleasantville, NY -March 4-25
*       Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland, OH-March 5-15
*       The Cinematheque, Vancouver, BC, Canada -March 12-22
*       Northwest Film Center, Portland, OR -March 26-29

 

**More venues to be announced**
SERIES PROGRAM:

 

FEATURES

A special presentation of: FORCE MAJEURE
Ruben Östlund, Sweden/Denmark/France/Norway, 2014, 118m, 35mm & DCP
Swedish and English with English subtitles
A Magnolia Pictures Release
On a ski vacation in the French Alps, a young Swedish couple and their two children have a close call with an avalanche that sends the father, Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), scurrying for his life, leaving behind his panicked kids and equally terrorized wife, Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli). Though no one is harmed, the foundational beliefs and expectations holding together the edifices of marriage and family have been shattered. As Östlund plumbs the aftermath of Tomas’s split-second transgression, this scalpel-sharp, often squirmingly funny film examines the flimsy bonds of coupledom, the conflict between social role and survival instinct, and the impossibility of undoing that which has come before. Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and this year’s official Swedish Oscar entry.

 

PLAY
Ruben Östlund, Sweden/France/Denmark, 2011,118m
Swedish with English Subtitles
“I want to make the audience active and reflective,”Östlund has stated. He does just that with this controversial record, inspired by actual court cases, of five black teenagers harassing white and Asian youths through scams and role-playing. All violence is implied, but the graver implication (which inflamed critics on the home front) is that political correctness debilitates society, as “good people”stand by and do nothing for fear of being thought racist. Östlund, who won a Swedish Oscar for Best Director and a “Coup de coeur”prize at Cannes, imprisons his actors within a frame, not unlike our social mores freezing us in place. Unabashedly impolite, PLAY offers food for thought and fuel for fury.

 

INVOLUNTARY
Ruben Östlund, Sweden, 2008,98m
Swedish with English Subtitles
Described by Östlund as “a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy,”the director’s second feature examines group dynamics and the dark side of human nature in five tales of social discord. In one, a teacher sees a colleague carry discipline too far and mentions the act in the staff room, with startling consequences. In another, a party host, afraid of losing face, unwisely neglects an injury. Two parallel stories detail groupthink among young men and women respectively. Co-written with Östlund’s long-time producer Erik Hemmendorff, and inspired by personal experiences, INVOLUNTARY situates the viewer inside each social powder keg, where recognition and uneasy laughter coalesce.

 

THE GUITAR MONGOLOID – U.S. PREMIERE
Ruben Östlund, Sweden, 2004, 89m
Swedish with English Subtitles
Östlund’s feature debut is set in Jöteborg, a fictional Swedish city resembling the director’s own hometown of Göteborg (Gothenburg). His focus is on outsiders and nonconformists, in particular the titular musician, a young man facing dire obstacles in life. The mostly nonprofessional cast brings a documentary quality to this loosely scripted communal portrait, wrought with compassion and touches of humor. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2005 Moscow International Film Festival, THE GUITAR MONGOLOID is shot in typical Östlund fashion, with an observant camera capturing life from fixed positions.

 

SHORTS
Incident by a Bank
Ruben Östlund, Sweden, 2009, 12m
Swedish with English Subtitles
Based on a real-life account of a bank robbery witnessed (and filmed) by two bystanders across the street, Östlund’s study of surveillance earned the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale. His slow zooms and pans across vast public spaces-and his implicit question, “who watches the watchers?”-may remind some viewers of Michael Haneke’s Caché.

 

Autobiographical Scene Number 6882  – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Ruben Östlund, Sweden, 2005, 9m
Swedish with English Subtitles
A young man boasts to friends that he will jump from a high bridge into the river below, then begins to have second thoughts. This penetrating short presages Östlund’s Involuntary for its illustration of peer pressure and FORCE MAJEURE for its critique of the fragile male psyche.

 

Free Radicals (NY ONLY)
Ruben Östlund, Sweden, 1997, 30m
Östlund discovered his penchant for long takes making ski films, in which unbroken shots prove the authenticity of the unbelievable feats depicted. Stunning compositions and an energetic soundtrack (featuring Swedish hip-hop, electronica, ska, and thrash metal) make this a sensory delight, even for those who aren’t skiing enthusiasts.

 

Free Radicals 2 (NY ONLY)
Ruben Östlund, Sweden, 1998, 30m
Östlund’s follow-up to his highly praised Free Radicals was shot in breathtaking locales throughout Sweden, France, Switzerland, Norway, and Alaska. If FORCE MAJEURE is, as he describes it, “a ski trip to hell,” the natural beauty on display here conjures a celestial vision of heaven on the slopes.
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ABOUT COMEBACK COMPANY

 

Based in New York, Comeback Company was founded by producer and independent film programmer Irena Kovarova. Having worked in repertory cinema since 2004, Irena founded the company in 2013 to further expand her film projects. Its first program was a retrospective of Czech director Jan Němec’s 50 year career, which toured 15 cities in North America from November 2013 through April 2014. For details, visit www.comebackcompany

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And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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