Lukas Moodysson
Encyclopedia
Karl Frederik Lukas Moodysson (ˈlʉːkas ˈmɔːdʏsɔn) (born 17 January 1969) is a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 film writer and director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

.

Early life

Born in Lund
Lund
-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...

, Moodysson grew up in Åkarp
Åkarp
Åkarp is a locality situated in Burlöv Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 5,393 inhabitants in 2005.It lies approximately 9 km northeast of Malmö and 12 km southwest of Lund. It has a station on the Skåne commuter rail network.- References :...

, Skåne County
Skåne County
Skåne County is the southernmost administrative county or län, of Sweden, basically corresponding to the historical province Scania. It borders the counties of Halland, Kronoberg and Blekinge. The seat of residence for the Skåne Governor is the town of Malmö...

 as an outcast, expressing himself through poetry. By the time he was 23 he had written five poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 collections and a novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 published by Wahlström & Widstrand
Wahlström & Widstrand
Wahlström & Widstrand is a Swedish book publishing company.Wahlström & Widstrand was established in 1885 by two book sellers in Stockholm, Per Karl Wahlström and Wilhelm Widstrand. The company started publishing fiction in the 1890s...

. He decided to move to film to produce works that were less introverted and could be enjoyed by a wider audience than poetry. After studying at what was then Sweden's only film school, the Dramatiska Institutet, he directed three short films before moving to features.

Filmmaking

His directorial breakthrough came with Fucking Åmål (retitled Show Me Love in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

-speaking countries.) A classical love story, filmed in a highly naturalistic, almost documentary style, it is set in the small and boring Swedish town of Åmål, and follows two young girls who awkwardly fall in love. The film was a huge success with both the Swedish public and the critics. It won four Guldbagge Award
Guldbagge Award
The Guldbagge Award is an official Swedish film award awarded annually since 1964 by the Swedish Film Institute.-Etymology:Guldbagge is the Swedish name for Cetonia aurata, a beetle also known as rose chafer. The name of the award could also be interpreted as a play on the Swedish word skalbagge,...

s, including best film, best actress (shared by the two girls Rebecka Liljeberg
Rebecka Liljeberg
Rebecka Månstråle Liljeberg is a Swedish actress.- Early life :Liljeberg's mother was relatively young when Rebecka was born, and Liljeberg's parents divorced when she was one year old. At the age of 9 , Liljeberg began her acting career when she won a role in the series Sunes jul...

 and Alexandra Dahlström
Alexandra Dahlström
Lena Marina Alexandra Dahlström is a Swedish actress.-Career:Dahlström gained international attention in 1998, after starring as "Elin" in the film Show Me Love. For this, she won the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress, together with Rebecka Liljeberg...

), best direction and best script. It was a colossal hit in Sweden.

His next film, 2000's Together
Together (2000 film)
Together is a 2000 comedy/drama film. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's second full length film. Set in a Stockholm commune called "Tillsammans" in 1975, it is a satirical view at socialist values and a bittersweet comedy....

(Tillsammans), followed the antics of life in a commune in suburban Stockholm in the 1970s. The film achieved a sense of the era through extensive use of period Swedish progg
Progg
Progg, a contraction of the Swedish word for "progressive music" was a left-wing and anti-commercial musical movement in Sweden that had its roots in the late 1960s, and its golden age in the 1970s. It should not be confused with the English expression progressive music or progressive rock. Progg...

 and pop songs, including ABBA
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...

's hit "S.O.S."

Moodysson followed up these two sunny, cheerfully optimistic films with the brutal Lilya 4-ever
Lilya 4-ever
Lilja 4-ever is a 2002 Swedish drama film. It is director Lukas Moodysson's third feature film which marks a sharp change of mood from his previous two films, the uplifting love story Show Me Love and Together, set in the 1970s...

in 2002, named by many American critics' ten best lists for the following year. The mainly Russian language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 film follows a young girl living in an unspecified country in the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 (filmed in Estonia) as she is abandoned by her mother, drops out of school, is forced into prostitution and then is kidnapped into sex slavery. Moodysson has said he could not have made the film without his strong Christian beliefs, and the frequent religious fantasies that Lilja has are the only tender spots in the bleak world Moodysson presents. At the time of the film's release, critic Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr is an American film critic. A critic at the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune for many years, he writes a weekly column for The New York Times on DVD releases, in addition to contributing occasional pieces on individual films or filmmakers.-Early life and education:Dave Kehr did...

 of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

declared Moodysson to be "Sweden's most praised filmmaker since Ingmar Bergman".

His 2004 film, the controversial A Hole in My Heart
A Hole in My Heart
A Hole in My Heart is a 2004 Swedish drama film written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, starring Thorsten Flinck, Sanna Bråding, Björn Almroth and Goran Marjanovic...

, is more an experimental film than a traditional narrative, and he has said it is intentionally designed to be off-putting to the audience. It intersperses frequent screeching noises, close-ups of female genital surgery, and other jarring elements into a vague plot about two pornographers shooting their latest video in a filthy apartment, with an attention-craving porn starlet, while the webbed-handed son of one of the men stays holed up in his bedroom. It received a special certificate for shocking images in Sweden, and received terrible reviews from the vast majority of critics.

He followed this with another even more experimental film, 2006's Container
Container (film)
Container is a Swedish film by Lukas Moodysson. It was first shown at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2006.The movie is in black and white and was described by Moodysson as "a silent movie with sound"; an appropriate description as the only sound of the film is a spoken...

, featuring narration by actress Jena Malone
Jena Malone
Jena Malone is an American actress and musician who has appeared on television, in films, and on Broadway. She made her movie debut with the film Bastard Out of Carolina , and has appeared in films including Contact , Stepmom , Donnie Darko , Saved! , Into the Wild , and Sucker Punch .Malone is...

. The only audible sound in the movie is a stream of consciousness narrative, which is only loosely related to the visual content.

His latest project, Mammoth
Mammoth (2008 film)
Mammoth is a 2009 Swedish fiction film directed by Lukas Moodysson, about a successful New York couple experiencing conditions related to modern day globalization. The couple is played by Gael García Bernal and Michelle Williams, in the roles of Leo and Ellen Vidales. The title superficially refers...

was released January 23, 2009. Unlike his previous two efforts, it is a narrative film and also his first English-language piece, about a successful New York couple, their daughter and her Filipino nanny.

All of Moodysson's feature films have been produced, or co-produced, by Memfis Film, a small Swedish production company based in Stockholm. Memfis' CEO and producer Lars Jönsson
Lars Jönsson
Lars Jönsson is a Swedish lute, vihuela and classical guitar maker. He made instruments for musicians such as Nigel North, a lutenist from England.-External links:*...

 seeks to establish long-term working relationships with directors, and support even less commercially oriented projects, such as Moodysson's A Hole in My Heart and Container.

Personal life

Moodysson is an outspoken advocate of left-wing and feminist politics and at the same time a deeply committed Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

. All of these traits have become more and more pronounced in his works.

He has three children with his wife, graphic novelist Coco Moodysson
Coco Moodysson
Coco Moodysson is a Swedish comic creator who makes so-called "alternative", often autobiographical, comics. She made her album debut in 2002 with Coco Platina Titan Total and has been regularly published in the Swedish cultural magazine Galago.Coco is married to filmmaker Lukas...

.

Filmography

  • Det var en mörk och stormig natt (1995
    1995 in film
    -Top grossing films:-Events:* March 22 - The Dogme 95 movement is officially announced in Paris by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.* March 28 - Actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett announce their plans for separation....

    )
  • En uppgörelse i den undre världen (1996
    1996 in film
    Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:...

    )
  • Talk (Bara prata lite) (1997
    1997 in film
    -Events:* The original Star Wars trilogy's Special Editions are released.* Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.* Titanic becomes the first film to gross US$1,000,000,000 at the box office making it the highest grossing film in history until Avatar broke the record in 2010.*...

    )
  • Show Me Love (Fucking Åmål) (1998
    1998 in film
    -Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:...

    )
  • Together
    Together (2000 film)
    Together is a 2000 comedy/drama film. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's second full length film. Set in a Stockholm commune called "Tillsammans" in 1975, it is a satirical view at socialist values and a bittersweet comedy....

    (Tillsammans) (2000
    2000 in film
    The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....

    )
  • The New Country
    The New Country
    The New Country is a Swedish mini TV-series and feature film from 2000, directed by Geir Hansteen Jörgensen and written by Peter Birro and Lukas Moodysson. The mini-series version had a huge audience at national television, SVT and the feature film version won more awards around the world than any...

    (Det nya landet) (2000
    2000 in film
    The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....

    )
  • Lilya 4-ever
    Lilya 4-ever
    Lilja 4-ever is a 2002 Swedish drama film. It is director Lukas Moodysson's third feature film which marks a sharp change of mood from his previous two films, the uplifting love story Show Me Love and Together, set in the 1970s...

    (Lilja 4-ever) (2002
    2002 in film
    The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...

    )
  • Terrorists: The Kids They Sentenced
    Terrorists: The Kids They Sentenced
    Terrorists: The Kids They Sentenced is a Swedish 2003 documentary directed by Lukas Moodysson and Stefan Jarl...

    (Terrorister - en film om dom dömda) (2003
    2003 in film
    The year 2003 in film involved some significant events. Releases of sequels took place with movies like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Pokémon Heroes, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,...

    )
  • A Hole in My Heart
    A Hole in My Heart
    A Hole in My Heart is a 2004 Swedish drama film written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, starring Thorsten Flinck, Sanna Bråding, Björn Almroth and Goran Marjanovic...

    (Ett hål i mitt hjärta) (2004
    2004 in film
    The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...

    )
  • Container
    Container (film)
    Container is a Swedish film by Lukas Moodysson. It was first shown at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2006.The movie is in black and white and was described by Moodysson as "a silent movie with sound"; an appropriate description as the only sound of the film is a spoken...

    (2006
    2006 in film
    - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...

    )
  • Mammoth (2009
    2009 in film
    The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of this year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five .- Highest-grossing films :Please note...

    )

Awards

  • Teddy Award
    Teddy Award
    The Teddy Award is an international film award for films with LGBT topics, presented by an independent jury as an official award of the Berlin International Film Festival . Here, an "independent jury" implies that its members are not officially selected by the committee of the Berlinale...

     for Best Feature FilmFucking Åmål, 1999
  • Gijón
    Gijón
    Gijón , officially Gijón / Xixón, is a coastal industrial city and a municipality in the autonomous community of Asturias in Spain. Early mediaeval texts mention it as "Gigia". It was an important regional Roman city, although the area has been settled since earliest history...

     International Film Festival: Best DirectorTogether, 2000. Best ScriptTogether, 2000. Young Jury Prize for Best Feature FilmTogether, 2000.
  • Gijón
    Gijón
    Gijón , officially Gijón / Xixón, is a coastal industrial city and a municipality in the autonomous community of Asturias in Spain. Early mediaeval texts mention it as "Gigia". It was an important regional Roman city, although the area has been settled since earliest history...

     International Film Festival: Best Feature FilmLilya 4-ever, 2002. Young Jury Prize for Best Feature FilmLilya 4-ever, 2002.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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