“I am happy, proud, and humbled to be trusted with the honor of Jury president for this year’s Competition at the Festival de Cannes. 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 cinema has a unique aspect – there, we watch together, and it demands more of what is shown and increases the intensity of the experience. It makes us reflect in a different way than when we dopamine scroll in front of the individual screens”, declared future President Ruben Östlund.
With a track record of only 6 features, the filmmaker was already selected twice at Un Certain Regard, where he was awarded the Jury Prize in 2014, before later entering the Competition. No sooner does he appears there that the Palme d’Or is awarded to him twice; first for The Square at the 70th Festival de Cannes, and then for his next film acclaimed last year, Triangle of Sadness.
In 2017, in The Square, he tells the fictional story of an artistic experiment he conducted in his native country. The film addresses brilliantly the boundaries of public space, art, and the animal aspects within ourselves.
Finally, in 2022, Triangle of Sadness chronicles a cruise ship caught in a storm that reshuffles the cards of class struggle in Western societies in a nauseating hullabaloo.
By inviting Ruben Östlund to preside over the Jury, the Festival de Cannes wishes to pay a tribute to films that are uncompromising and forthright and that constantly demand that viewers challenge themselves and that art continue to invent itself.
Ruben Östlund has therefore become the third two-time winner of the Palme d’Or to be the President of the Jury, following Francis Ford Coppola and Emir Kusturica, and the very first to take on this role the year after his acclaim in Cannes.
Östlund’s jury duty will fall exactly 50 years after late compatriot, actress Ingrid Bergman also served in the role in 1973.
The Festival de Cannes will take place from Tuesday, May 16 to Saturday, May 27, 2023. The film selection will be revealed in mid-April.