Two-time Palme d’Or-winning Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund has been named president of the jury for the 76th Cannes Film Festival, running May 16-27.
The director, known for his darkly comic social satires, will make his Croisette return following his second Palme d’Or win last May for Triangle Of Sadness after previously taking home the coveted prize in 2017 for The Square.
Östlund has been a Cannes regular over the years, selected twice for Un Certain Regard, first for Involuntary in 2008 and then in 2014 for Force Majeure, for which he received the jury prize.
His feature Play bowed in Director’s Fortnight in 2011. Triangle Of Sadness is up for Academy Awards for best film, best director and best original screenplay.
Östlund is the third two-time winner of the Palme d’Or to preside over the jury following Francis Ford Coppola and Emir Kusturica and becomes the first to take on the role the year after his prize in Cannes.
His presidency notably comes 50 years after fellow Swede Ingrid Bergman presided over the jury at the 1973 festival.
Östlund said he was “happy, proud, and humbled to be trusted with the honour”. He added, “Nowhere in the film world is the anticipation as strong as when the curtain rises on the films in Competition at the festival. It is a privilege to be part of it, together with the Cannes audience of connoisseurs. I am sincere when I say that cinema culture is in its most important period ever.”
The filmmaker described the “unique aspect” of the collective cinema experience where “it makes us reflect in a different way than when we dopamine scroll in front of individual screens”.
Cannes said in a statement that it chose Östlund “to pay tribute to films that are uncompromising and forthright and which constantly demand that viewers challenge themselves and that art continues to invent itself”.
Östlund added: “As president, I will remind my colleagues in the jury about the social function of the cinema. A good movie relates to the collective experience, stimulates us to think and makes us want to discuss what we have seen – So let’s watch together!”
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