Historical triple win for Nordic films in Cannes - Palme d’or for Ruben Östlund

The two Swedish films Triangle of Sadness, Boy from Heaven and the Danish film Holy Spider by Ali Abbasi, were multi-territory European co-productions, made within the traditional public funding system.

Both Triangle of Sadness and Holy Spider were supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond. The triple Scandinavian win at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival comes on the heels of last year's top awards for Norway's The Worst Person in the World (Best Actress to Renate Reinsve) and Finland's Compartment No6 (Grand Prix).

For Östlund, winning his second Palme d'or five years after The Square, was a mission well accomplished, as he explained in his acceptance speech May 28 at the Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes: “When we started this film, we had one goal which was to thrill the audience with a thought-provoking subject, to make them ask questions; we wanted them to have something to discuss after the screening,” he said. “All of us agree that the unique thing with cinema is that we’re watching [it] together. So we have to have something to talk about but we should also have fun and be entertained.

"I’m so happy because we had a wonderful [official] screening here in Cannes and I’m so happy that the jury has recognised the quality of our film,” said Östlund, before asking the tuxedo and formal-dressed audience to join him in a primal scream of joy.

Östlund’s epic satire set against the world of fashion and über rich was produced by Erik Hemmendorff (Plattform) and Philippe Bober. SF Studios will release it in Sweden in September.

Triangle of Sadness won two other awards: the AFCAE Award (Prize from 1,200 arthouse cinemas in France) for best official competition film and the CST artistic and technical award, handed out to the sound crew headed up by Andréas Franck, Bent Holm, Jacob Ilgner and Jonas Rudels.

Both Boy from Heaven and Holy Spider were personal works for the Swedish director Saleh of part-Egyptian origin, and Iranian born Danish director Abbasi, who shot their films in Arabic and Persian respectively, and through fiction, questioned their respective countries' traditions.

In his acceptance speech, Saleh said he is heart-broken not to be able to go back to Egypt, following the banning of his 2017 film The Nile Hilton Incident (which depicted corruption in the Egyptian police). But he still had to make another film - Boy from Heaven - set in Egypt, although it had to be shot elsewhere, in Turkey. "I want to dedicate this prize to the young filmmakers in Egypt so that they raise their voices and tell their story,” Saleh added.

He also said: “Thank you so much the jury for this [Best Script] Prize; that means everything to me as I am a writer first.”

Boy from Heaven also received in Cannes the Prix François Chalais, handed out to a film in the main competition which best reflects the reality of the world .

The film ​​produced by Kristina Åberg (Atmo) and Fredrik Zander will be released in Sweden by TriArt November 18.

Meanwhile in another politically-charged speech, Holy Spider's Iranian-born star actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi ​reminded her personal ordeal in her forced exile to France 13 years ago, after been victim of a smear campaign in Iran.

She also paid tribute to Abbasi and his film. "This [film] is about women, it's about their bodies, it's a movie full of faces, hair, hands, feet, breasts, sex-everything that is impossible to show in Iran. Thank you, Ali Abbasi for being so crazy and so generous and for directing against all odds this powerful thing."

Holy Spider was produced by Jacob Jarek of Denmark’s Profile Pictures, with Germany’s Sol Bondy of One Two Films. Camera Film will release it in Denmark in October.

Two prominent Scandinavian talents sat on the Jury presided over by French actor Vincent Lindon: Swedish actress Noomi Rapace and Norwegian writer/director Joachim Trier.

For the full list of Cannes awards 2022: CLICK HERE.