Lukas Moodysson

Lukas Moodysson was a critically-acclaimed director from Sweden. His sensitive, experimental films won him international respect and popular success in his home country. Moodysson was born on January 17, 1969 and grew up a self-proclaimed loner in Åkarp, Skåne County, Sweden. He began writing at a young age, and he had five poetry collections and a novel to his name by the time he was 23. He decided to switch to film to gain a wider audience, studying at what was then Sweden's only film school. He catapulted into the public eye with the hugely successful and provocatively titled "F*cking Åmål" (1998), a story about two girls falling in love in a small town. The-coming-of-age film was notably accompanied by a catchy pop soundtrack; its English title "Show Me Love" came from the Robyn song that plays at the end. The film met with great success, both critically and with the people of Sweden. Moodysson went on to release "Together" (2000), a film set in 1970s Stockholm, and the much darker "Lilya 4-ever" (2002) about an ill-fated girl's life in the former Soviet Union. After these highly successful films, Moodysson took a far more experimental turn with "A Hole In My Heart" (2004), which featured harsh screeching noises accompanying disturbing images of surgery and a barely there narrative, and "Container" (2006), with a stream of consciousness narrative accompanying seemingly unrelated imagery. These change of pace films received mostly negative reviews, and he returned to more conventional films in the years after. In 2013, he released "We Are The Best!" a 1980s-set film about a young female punk band, based on his wife Coco's comic book. The film met with critical success internationally.