Ruben Östlund Handed Göteborg Dragon Award

Ruben Östlund will be presented with the 2021 Nordic Honorary Dragon Award during the 44th Göteborg Film Festival (29th January – 8th February), which will be a strictly digital experience this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Östlund began his career filming extreme ski stunts, and went on to study film directing at the University of Photography & Film in Gothenburg, during which time his documentary Let the Others Deal With Love and graduation film Family Again both premiered at the Göteborg Film Festival.

Since the premiere of Involuntary (2008), all of Ruben Östlund’s feature films have premiered at Cannes, with Play (2011) honoured during Directors’ Fortnight, Force Majeure (2014) winning Un Certain Regard, and The Square (2017) making him the first Swede in 66 years to win the Palme d’Or. 

Festival Programme Manager, Tobias Åkesson, said: “Ruben Östlund’s exploratory outlook on human behavior, the ability to put his characters in deep moral dilemmas with both humour and psychological sharpness, and the courage to tackle controversial topics have made him one of the Nordic region’s most prominent filmmakers.”

“By awarding the Nordic Honorary Dragon Award to Ruben Östlund, the Göteborg Film Festival celebrates a unique film maker imbued with great artistic integrity who provokes, makes us laugh and makes us question our way of living, all at the same time.”

Previous recipients of the award include Stellan Skarsgård (2020), Mads Mikkelsen (2019), Alicia Vikander (2018), Lone Scherfig (2017), Susanne Bier (2016), Liv Ullmann (2015), and Baltasar Kormákur (2014).