As the Festival’s honorary president, the Swedish two-time Palme d’or winner will invite the Göteborg Draken cinemagoers Saturday January 28 to an experiment to create ‘the best cinema audience in the world’.

As part of his signature interest in behaviourism and urge to challenge the cinema audience in its relationship to film, Östlund will break the fourth wall and direct the live audience itself, during an exclusive screening of his Palme d’or winning film Triangle of Sadness.

"There’s a unique aspect to the cinema: it’s where we watch together. Watching something together intensifies the experience and sets a higher standard for what’s shown on the screen,” said the director, who also picks at people in the Nordics for having a “more passive audience culture”, compared to countries like France or the US. “Here [in the Nordics] we hide in our seats, taking less responsibility for the show”, he argues. “After screenings, we go home without discussing what we’ve seen. That kind of visit to the movie theatre is hardly even worth leaving the individual screen for. For cinematic culture to flourish and reach its full potential, the audience must understand the part they play”, insisted one of Sweden’s most internationally acclaimed filmmakers.

The event named This is Cinema! is organised by the Göteborg Film Festival, which in the past has created similar audience-challenging experiments, such as last year’s ‘The Hypnotic Cinema’, or ‘The Isolated Cinema’ for a single person cinema viewing on an island, in the middle of Covid in 2021.

“At the Göteborg Film Festival, we not only want to show and talk about the most interesting films of the year. By being a platform for experimental cinematic experiences, we also want to initiate a discussion around how we’re watching films in this period of medial transition,” said artistic director Jonas Holmberg, praising Östlund for wanting to “challenge traditional ideas about the relationship between director, audience, and film”. “Presenting the show This Is Cinema! at the Göteborg Film Festival makes me both proud and full of expectation”, he said.

Watch the trailer for This is Cinema!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSn26WGma0s&feature=youtu.be

Saturday January 28, the festival will also be arranging several seminars on cinema as a vehicle of culture and social space, following up on the annual Film Policy Summit January 27, where the future of cinematic culture will be one of the main topics.

Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness has been released in more than 25 territories since its triumphal world launch at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the coveted Palme d’or. According to Box Office Mojo, the satire of the super-rich has grossed over $4.1m in the US via Neon and nearly $4m in France via Bac Films, where more than 500,000 visitors have seen it in cinemas.

In the Nordics, the film produced by Plattform Produktion has performed as anticipated by SF Studios in Denmark, Finland and Norway (with more than 100,000, 30,000 and 14,000 tickets sold in each respective territory) but below expectations in Sweden (144,047 against the anticipated 170,000).

Triangle of Sadness has won multiple awards internationally, including four European Film Awards for Best European Film, Best Director, Best Script (Östlund), Best Actor (Zlatko Burić).

At the Golden Globes awards in Hollywood January 10, the film has a chance to win two statuettes for Best Picture-Musical or Comedy and Best Support Actress (Dolly De Leon).

The Göteborg Film Festival is due to kickstart January 27 with the world premiere of the Swedish drama Exodus directed by Abbe Hassan. The full programme will be announced January 10.