Lukas Moodysson

Work: Lilya 4-Ever
When: 10 pm Saturday April 2 2005
Shere: Muvico 1 - Centro Ybor

Lukas Moodysson

With his first two feature efforts, F**king Amal (1998) and Together (2000), Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson earned a strong following for his acute, gentle sense of social satire and his remarkably well-drawn and sympathetic characters.

Though his third feature, the soul-shredding Lilja 4-Ever, marked a notably dark turn in terms of content for Moodysson, his sense of characterization was perhaps stronger than ever, and the stark tale of a young Russian girl forced into prostitution gained him international acclaim.

A native of the South Sweden burg of Lund, Moodysson was the son of hardworking farmers who hailed from the small community of Smaland (literally "small land"). When the opportunity arose for Moodysson's father to study engineering in the 1960s, he relocated to the university town of Lund, funding his education with work at a local hardware store; it was there that Karl Frederik Lukas Moodysson was born in January of 1969.

The future director was exposed to an early film influence at age 12 when he watched the film Fanny and Alexander; he strongly relating to the character of Alexander due to his parents' recent divorce.

A misfit in school who turned to poetry to express himself, Moodysson penned five poetry collections and a novel by the age of 23. He later turned to film in order to explore the world around him, and in the process he claims he became less "self-centered."

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