INVOLUNTARY

“Unsettlingly insistent, smartly played and bleakly hilarious.” - Empire Online

Reuben Östlund's Cannes hit Play featured at MIFF 11, and his earlier Involuntary similarly puts the dynamics of social pressure under a magnifying glass with knife-edge precision.

A man injured at his own party chooses to soldier on rather than ruin the night for everyone else; a group of teenage girls pout, preen and flirt, pushing one another further in social and sexual games; a schoolteacher carries out a psychological experiment on her class to illustrate the power of peer pressure; and, at a drunken reunion, a young man exploits his mates' willingness to go with the flow to take advantage of another friend.

Winner of ten festival awards including the FIPRESCI Award at the Palm Springs Film Festival, Involuntary raises questions about conformity and the power of a group over the individual.

D Reuben Östlund P Erik Hemmendorff S Ruben Östlund, Erik Hemmendorff WS Coproduction Office L Swedish w/English subtitles TD 35mm/2008