A Swedish family travels to the French Alps to enjoy a few days of skiing and spend some precious time with each other. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but, during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche turns everything upside down. With diners fleeing in all directions, mother Ebba calls for her husband Tomas as she tries to protect their children. Tomas, meanwhile, is running for his life... Reality returns to embarrassed laughter, the anticipated disaster having failed to occur, and yet the family’s world has been shaken to its core. Tomas’ unexpected action leads them to evaluate their roles and assumptions, a question mark hanging over their father in particular. With the end of the holiday approaching, Tomas and Ebba’s marriage hangs in the balance as Tomas struggles desperately to reclaim his role as family patriarch. FORCE MAJEURE is an observational comedy about the role of the male in modern family life.

Direction: Ruben Östlund

Script: Ruben Östlund

Production: Erik Hemmendorff, Marie Kjellson, , Philippe Bober

Cinematography: Fredrik Wenzel

Editing: Ruben Östlund, Jacob Secher Schulsinger

Production Design: Josefin Asberg

Costume Design: Pia Aleborg

Sound: Kjetil Mork, Rune Van Deurs, Jesper Miller

Original Score: Ola Flottum

Cast: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli

Original Title: TURIST

Original Languages: English, Swedish

Subtitles: English

Film Production Countries: Sweden, Denmark, France, Norway

Statement of the Director/s
FORCE MAJEURE has its origins in a question I have long been fas- cinated by: How do human beings react in sudden and unexpected situations such as a catastrophe? The story concerns some holiday- makers who witness an avalanche and run away, terrified. When it is over, they are ashamed because they have succumbed to their primal fear.
This particular story came about from an anecdote that I found impossible to forget. Some years ago, a Swedish couple, friends of mine, were on holiday in Latin America when suddenly, out of nowhere, gunmen appeared and opened fire; the husband instinctively ran for cover, leaving his wife unprotected. Back in Sweden, she could not stop, after a glass of wine or two, telling the story over and over again...
My imagination fired, I began to research other true stories like this
one - stories of distress and emergency, of passengers during the sinking of ships, of tourists striken by tsunamis or held hostage by hijackers. In such extreme situations, people can react in completely unexpected and exceedingly selfish ways. It appears - there are scientific studies on the subject - that in the aftermath of a catastrophe, a hijack attack or a shipwreck, a large number of the survivors divorce. It also appears that, in many cases, men do not act according to the expected codes of chivalry. In life or death situations, when ones very own survival is at stake, it seems that men are even more likely to run away and save themselves than women... Which may be the chief cause for those divorces. This made me want to talk about the received notion that a man is sup- posed to be the protector of his wife and family, the societal code that says he must not step back in the face of danger.
From here, I arrived at the concept of an existential drama in a ski resort - something that seems to me awfully appealing. Ski holidays contribute to the feeling of having full control over one’s own life. Les Arcs, where FORCE MAJEURE was shot, was built in the 1950s, like most European ski resorts, to receive middle-class families consisting of a (sometimes working) mother, an executive fa- ther and two kids. The father is supposed to muck in, the fully equipped open-plan kitchens in the ski apartments giving the mother a chance to do things other than cooking, for instance to ski with her family, or to relax. Ski resorts are meant to be cosy, as the advertising shows: we can imagine the woman relaxing, her husband playing with the kids. (...)

Biography of the Director/s
BIOGRAPHY: Ruben Ostlund was born in 1974 in Styrso, a small island off the West Coast of Sweden. He studied graphic design before enrolling at the University of Gothenburg, where he met producer Erik Hemmendorff with whom he later founded Plattform Produktion. An avid skier, Ostlund directed three ski films, alluding to his taste for long sequence shots, a taste he structured and developed throughout his film studies and which to this day remains an important trademark of his work. Ruben has become well known for his humorous and accurate portrayal of human social behaviour, as well as for his renowned use of Photoshop and other forms of image processing software in his films. His feature debut THE GUITAR MONGOLOID, produced by the cofounder of Plattform Produktion Erik Hemmendorff, won the FIPRESCI Award at Moscow in 2005. INVOLUNTARY premiered at Un Certain Regard 2008. The film was then distributed in more than twenty countries and shown at numerous festivals, awarding Ruben international recognition. Two years later, he won the Golden Bear in Berlin for INCIDENT IN A BANK, a short film in which every cam- era movement was computer generated in post-production. The premiere of his third feature film PLAY (2011) was held in Cannes at The Director’s Fortnight, where he was awarded the ‘Coup de Coeur’ Prize. After Cannes, PLAY was shown in Venice and Toronto as well as numerous other festivals where it was awarded additional prices and distinctions. Amongst others, PLAY was nomi- nated for the prestigious LUX prize of the European Parliament and won the Nordic Prize, the highest distinction in Scandinavia.
Over the last decade Ruben’s approach to staging has influenced many Scandinavian directors and paved the way for experimentation in the usage of HD cameras and computers. In association with his producer and partner Erik Hemmendorff, he has created a collective with other innovative cinematographers called “The School of Gothenburg”. FORCE MAJEURE is his fourth feature film.

FILMOGRAPHY:
PLAY (2011) - Directors’ Fortnight, Nordic Council Film Award, Dublin : Critics Choice, Gijón, Guldbagge, Tokyo : 3 Awards for Best Director, Guldbagge : Best Photography, Greta : Best film, Moscou : Grand Prix, Tromsø : Audience Award
INCIDENT BY A BANK (2010, short court) - Berlinale Golden Bear
INVOLUNTARY (2008) - Un Certain Regard
Brussels: Best film, Estoril, Mar de Plata : 2 Jury Awards, Geneva: Best director, Miami, Palm Springs : 2 FIPRESCI Prize

Awards Won
Cannes: Un Certain Regard Jury Prize

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