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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. An avid skier, Östlund directed three ski films, alluding to his taste for long sequence shots, a taste he structured and developed throughout his film studies and which remains an important trademark of his work to this day. He has become well known for his humorous and accurate portrayal of human social behaviour, as well as for his renowned used of Photoshop and other forms of image-processing software in his films. He is currently Professor of Film at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gothenburg, Sweden. His feature debut, The Guitar Mongoloid, won the FIPRESCI Award at Moscow in 2005. The film was then distributed in more than 20 countries and shown at numerous festivals, earning him international recognition. Two years later, Östlund won the Golden Bear in Berlin for Incident by a Bank, a short film in which every camera movement was computer generated in post-production. The premiere of his third feature film, Play (2011), was held in Cannes at the Director’s Fortnight, where he was awarded the “Coup de coeur” prize. The film was nominated for the prestigious LUX prize of the European Parliament and won 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. The film was selected in countless festivals, won 16 Best Foreign film awards, and was also nominated at the Golden Globe and shortlisted for an Oscar. The film has been distributed in over 70 countries. His latest film The Square won the Palm d’Or in 2017.