The unanimous jury explains its choice of winner: “In the brilliant film You, the living, Roy Andersson focuses on life, death and the fragile yearnings of mankind. With its unique visual style and narrative rhythm this everyday symphony challenges our preconceived attitude to film at the same time as it makes us use our senses in a new way. Instead of telling just one story in a conventional linear style, "You, the Living" is made up of carefully composed sequences from a bizarre world which is simultaneously sad and surrealistically funny. These humorous and tragic tableaux show our best and worst sides, make us laugh and force us to think. In brief, 'You, the Living' reminds us of the opportunities that the film media holds for powerful personal experiences."
Cannes and Oscar
Roy Andersson's tragic comedy film had its premiere in Cannes' Un Certain Regard in 2007. The film was selected as Sweden's candidate for an Oscar the same year, won three Guldbagge awards in 2008 (best film, best director, best script), and was awarded a silver prize at the Chicago International Film Festival, and was later nominated for a European Film Award.
The prize has great significance for the winner Roy Andersson: "Receiving this prestigious prize means a great deal to me. I believe there is every reason to acknowledge the Nordic Council for its endeavours to raise film to a high cultural level, just like it has done with the other major Nordic prizes in music and literature.
Moreover, apart from the honour, the prize is also of very tangible and practical importance to me, because the cash value of the prize gives me unique, excellent opportunities to prompt research and writing on my new film, where I now have the possibility of working with new techniques".
The Nordic Film Prize is awarded to the director, the scriptwriter and the producer. The prize is worth DKK 350,000 and will be presented to the two prize winners in conjunction with the Nordic Council's Session in Helsinki on 28 October.
This is the fifth time that the Nordic Council is awarding this much sought after prize for an artistically original film production that has distinguished itself by national characteristics. The prize was awarded for the first time in 2002 to the Finnish film ''The Man Without a Past" (Aki Kaurismäki), in 2005 to the Danish film "Manslaughter" (Per Fly), in 2006 to the Swedish film Zozo (Josef Fares) and in 2007 to the Danish film "The Art of Crying" (Peter Schønau Fog).
The Nordic Council Film Prize is just one of several prizes awarded by the Nordic Council. It also gives out a literature prize, a music prize and a nature and environment prize every year. The objective of these prizes is to increase interest in literature, language, music and film between the Nordic countries.
Contact:
Ylva Swedenborg
Cinema Sweden
ylva@cinemasweden.com
+46708983848 +4686651100/+4686663614
To the editors:
Press photos of the winning film and portraits of the prize winners can be downloaded from www.nordiskrådsfilmpris.com which also has descriptions of the other nominated films.
Roy Andersson on the film
"You, the Living is about the human being, about her greatness and her miserableness, her joy and sorrow, her self-confidence and anxiety. A being at whom we want to laugh and also cry for. It is simply a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy about us."
"The characters are very comical and sad at the same time, but life is a tragic-comedy," says Andersson. "You, the Living is a film about the vulnerability of human beings."
The director who confesses to a stronger artistic influence from painting, music or poetry than film, brought to his mind the works of German expressionist painters to make You, the Living,. "By using abstraction, and for the first time dream sequences, I felt totally free," said the director who intends to further exploit this feeling in his next project.
Roy Andersson biography
Born in Gothenburg in 1943, Andersson got his major breakthrough in 1970 with A Swedish Love Story, winner of four awards at the 1970 Berlin International Film Festival. His second feature film Giliap was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes 1976. Andersson then spent the next 25 years concentrating on commercials, building himself a world reputation. In 1981, he founded his company Studio 24 in Stockholm to produce and make his films in total freedom. He then came back to the big screen via the short film Something Happened (1987) and World of Glory (1991). Songs From the Second Floor, Anderson’s third feature film made in 2000 was hailed by many as a chef-d’oeuvre and cemented his new filmic style. The film won the Jury Prize in Cannes 2000.
Andersson is currently developing his new feature film with the working title ‘Utan titel’ (‘No title’) which he describes as a ‘powerful, solid, dynamic, revolutionary, drastic, surprising, funny, awful and beautiful film in a trilogy about the human existence”.
Pernilla Sandtröm - Producer biography
Pernilla Sandström studied economics and media at Stockholm Film School between 1998 and 1999. She started working for Roy Andersson’s production company in 1998 both on his commercials and feature films. She was production secretary on Songs From the Second Floor, then producer on You, the Living. Parallel to her production activities, she helped Andersson set up his own distribution company Studio24 Distribution in 2002 and set up in 2005 the company Soul Vision involved in short films, feature films and commercials.
She is currently working as producer for BLA Stockholm AB while putting the financing together for Roy Andersson’s upcoming film with the working title of Utan titel. (‘No Title’). “It will be Songs From the Second Floor and You, the Living combined in one high density film,” she said. The film has already received support from the Swedish Film Institute and shooting is set to start in spring 2009.