THE NORWEGIAN PEACE FILM AWARD JURY TIFF 2012
Sara Linnea Häll - MA-student at the CPS, board member of SNF, University of Tromsø
Asbjørn Grønstad - Professor of visual culture, director of Nomadikon Project, University of Bergen
Rossella Ragazzi - Documentary filmmaker assistant professor in visual anthropology and museology, University of Tromsø
play
Sweden | 2011 | 118 min
Director: Ruben Östlund
Screenplay: Ruben Östlund, Erik Hemmendorff
Photography: Marius Dybwad Brandrud
Actors: Anas Abdirahman, Sebastian Blyckert, Yannick Diakité, Sebastian Hegmar, Abdiaziz Hilowle, Nana Manu, John Ortiz, Kevin Vaz
Play is based on a series of robberies carried out in Gothenburg between 2006 and 2008 by young immigrant boys. The robbers applied a psychological game where they appeared threatening and manipulated their victims to follow them around town, before taking their cell phones and valuables. In Play, five boys of North-African origin target three Swedish boys with such a game. We follow all eight closely through humiliation, agony and absurd episodes.
In Play, as in his previous films, Ruben Östlund explores group dynamics. The many long takes create a distinctive and often cruel atmosphere. Through the main story about the boys, and two side stories, Play deals with the relationship between «us» and«them». At the same time, it raises the question of how preju-dice arises, and of how we can relate to it without ending up as racists or naïfs.
THE DIRECTOR
After graduating from the School of Film Directing in Gothenburg, Ruben Östlund (b. 1974) has received much acclaim for his «new realism» style of filmmaking, inspired by YouTube as well as by the Austrian director Ulrich Seidl. His INCIDENT BY A BANK won the Golden Bear for best short at Berlin International Film Festival in 2010