Swedish director Roy Andersson's You, The Living (Du levanda), which was launched in competition at Cannes, will be Sweden's official candidate for the Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign-Language Feature.

The selection, which was announced at a press conference in Stockholm today (Sept 25), was made by the 15-member committee also deciding the Guldbagge awards, the national film prizes.

Sweden's most popular festival traveller this year, unspooling at more than 30 international events, You the Living is Andersson's follow-up to Songs from the Second Floor (Sanger from andra vaningen), which won the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes 2000.

Andersson describes the film's 50 scenes of apparently unspectacular everyday situations as 'a comedy of la Condition Humaine, where humour and wit - to my knowledge the best means to deal with the erratic nature of life - becomes a way of survival.'

In 1975, after two films - one, A Swedish Love Story (En kärlekshistoria) received four prizes in Berlin - Andersson withdrew from feature filmmaking. For 25 years he concentrated on shorts, documentaries and commercials, for which he has been internationally awarded.

Produced by Andersson's own Studio 24 in Stockholm, You, The Living is sold by the film's Paris-based co-producer, The Coproduction Office. It has so far been licensed to 28 countries, including the US.

Sweden was most recently Oscar-nominated in 2003 (Mikael Hafstrom's Evil) and 2004 (Kay Pollak's As It Is in Heaven). Its latest win was Ingmar Bergman's Fanny & Alexander in 1983.

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