Unless you’re in business class, the airline industry is keen on making your flying experience in a miserable one. Continuing with his fascination for communal experiences gone wrong, Ruben Östlund‘s next film will ask the question: what happens when passengers on a long-haul flight are told that the entertainment system is down before take-off? In an interview for Triangle of Sadness with the Cineuropa folks, we learn that the Swedish helmer is going to treat us to Economy Class bliss. Along with the peanuts and pretzels, we fully expect the film to feature acute awareness of spatial settings, challenges to concepts of class, pinpricked power struggles and couple dynamics. The infamous bus sequence in Force Majeure does come to mind. Look for there to be more updates on this project as Ruben does the press rounds next month.
“My next attack will be executed differently, hopefully. It will take place during a long-haul flight, where the passengers are told shortly after take-off that the entertainment system is down. So the next 17 hours will have to be spent without any kind of digital pastime. The story will take a look at what happens to humanity inside this little fuselage of an aircraft in this situation. You want to know how it ends?”
From google: “The longest nonstop commercial flight in the world is scheduled at 17 hours and 50 minutes. This route from Los Angeles to Singapore”.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
