Incident by a Bank is a reconstruction of an attempted robbery witnessed by Ruben Östlund and his partner in Plattform production Erik Hemmendorff, in central Stockholm in June 2006. Ninety six extras act out the entire event shot with a new camera technique giving the illusion that the scene is shot in one single take. The short film jury stated: "Ruben Östlund's film is a real reflection on our times and the role played by media. Filmed with a single camera without a single cut, we zoom in and out of the picture as if using a CCTV camera. The dialogues are perfect and humanity is explained with humour." The film was produced by Hemmendorff and Marie Kjellsson, with support from the Swedish Film Institute.
Östlund had his international breakthrough in 2008 with Involuntary (De ofrivilliga), selected at Cannes' Un Certain Regard. The director has a particular interest in real time effect. His next feature film Play will explore this element through the story of a gang of young robbers who make their victims race for their belongings. The film follows the events and play on the robbers/victims situation in "real-time". Play is produced by Plattform in co-production with Philippe Bobert's Coproduction Office and support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.