The Swedish director Ruben Östlund has with his film Triangle of Sadness won the Palme d’Or for the second time at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2017 he was also awarded the prestigious film prize for his Swedish satire The Square.
Triangle of Sadness is about a cruise ship that sinks. The rich passengers then have to build a new life on an uninhabited island. The film received an eight-minute standing ovation at Cannes. Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean and Woody Harrelson star.
“When we started making this film, we had one goal – to really, really try to make it an exciting film that would get audiences thinking,” said Östlund. “We wanted to entertain the audience, we wanted them to ask themselves questions, we wanted them to have something to talk about after the screening,” the director said.
Östlund won his first Golden Palm for the film in 2017 The Square† Furthermore, the Swede is known from the film Force Majeure† It won the jury prize in Cannes in 2014.
The Grand Prix was awarded to two films this year: close by Belgian director Lukas Dhont and Stars at Noon by French director Claire Denis. The jury prize also had to be shared by The Eight Mountains by the Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, and EO by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski.
The competition for the main prize of the Cannes Film Festival was packed this edition – perhaps even more than usual – with well-known names from the arthouse world. These movies are likely to pop up more often in the coming months. Palm winners like Amour, The Tree of Life and parasite In recent years, for example, they also did well at the Oscars, which were only awarded the following year.