Roy Andersson

Roy Andersson was born in 1943 in Gothenburg, Sweden. In 1969, he graduated from the Swedish Film School, and his frst feature, A Swedish Love Story, won four prizes at the Berlin Film Festival in 1970. Giliap, his second flm, was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 1976. In 1975, he started a pioneering career as a director of commercials, earning a total of eight Golden Lions at Cannes. In 1981, he founded Studio 24 in Stockholm in order to freely produce and make his flms. This is also where he developed his unique flmmaking style. After Something Happened (1987) and World of Glory (1991), two shorts that earned the most prestigious awards (a.o. Clermont-Ferrand), he shot Songs from the Second Floor in his studio and won the Special Jury Prize at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Inspired by a poem of Cesar Vallejo, the flm is marked by its gloomy surrealism and the precision with which each of the 46 sequence shots is composed. As the frst chapter in The Living Trilogy, Songs from the Second Floor was followed in 2007 by You, the Living, which was also screened in Cannes. The flms cemented his personal style characterized by stationary shots and meticulously conceived tableaux, absurdist comedy as well and essential humanity. In 2009, Roy Andersson was distinguished by an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presenting not only his integral flmmaking oeuvre but also several of his commercials. A Pigeon Sat on Branch Refecting on Existence, his 5th feature flm, is the fnal chapter in The Living Trilogy, which was 15 years in the making. In 2019, For Eternity won the Best Director award at the Venice Film Festival.