ABOUT ENDLESSNESS

Synopsis

A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendour and banality.
We wander, dreamlike, gently guided by our Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments take on the same significance as historical events: a couple floats over a war-torn Cologne; on the way to a birthday party, a father stops to tie his daughter's shoelaces in the pouring rain; teenage girls dance outside a cafe; a defeated army marches to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Simultaneously an ode and a lament, ABOUT ENDLESSNESS presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.

Biography

Roy Andersson was born in 1943 in Gothenburg, Sweden. In 1969 he graduated from the Swedish Film School, and the following year his first feature, A SWEDISH LOVE STORY, won four prizes at the Berlin Int'l Film Festival. His second feature, GILIAP premiered at the Directors Fortnight at Cannes in 1976. Following that, Roy Andersson took an extended break from filmmaking and became a successful commercials director, enabling him to establish Studio24 in Stockholm in 1981, to freely produce and make his films and develop his unique style. His short films, SOMETHING HAPPENED (1987) and WORLD OF GLORY (1991), won prestigious awards including the Press Prize at the Clermond-Ferrand Short Film Festival.
Andersson began filming SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR in his studio in 1996 and it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000, where it won the Special Jury Prize. It was the first chapter of THE LIVING Trilogy, which was followed up in 2007 with YOU, THE LIVING, also premiering in Cannes, where it was selected for Un Certain Regard.
In 2009, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held an exhibition of Andersson's work, presenting not only his films but also a number of his commercials. The exhibition celebrated Andersson's distinctive filmmaking style, characterised by stationary shots, meticulously conceived tableaux, absurdist comedy and an essential humanity.
Fifteen years in the making, Andersson's feature film and the final chapter of THE LIVING Trilogy, A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE premiered at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, where it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film.
ABOUT ENDLESSNESS is Andersson's sixth feature and it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019.

Filmography:
2019 - ABOUT ENDLESSNESS
2014 - A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
2007 - YOU, THE LIVING
2000 - SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR
1991 - WORLD OF GLORY, short
1987 - SOMETHING HAPPENED, short
1975 - GILIAP
1970 - A SWEDISH LOVE STORY

Film Info

Project / Host