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World of Glory
Härlig är jorden
At the outskirts of a city, a group of people stands around a lorry. Naked men, women, and children are herded in through the rear door of the vehicle. Once the door is locked, a gentleman takes a hose and connects it from the exhaust pipe to the lorry’s interior. Then the lorry drives around in circles. A middle-aged man steps to the front of the scene, turns to the camera, and tells the story of his life.
Bio Roy Andersson
Roy Andersson (1943, Sweden) is a writer and filmmaker. The year after graduating from the Swedish Film School, he made his first feature film, A Swedish Love Story (1970), which won four prizes at the Berlin Film Festival. He established a film studio and directed Songs from the Second Floor, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. It was the first chapter of “The Living Trilogy”, followed by You, the Living. In 2009, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held an exhibition of his work to celebrate his distinctive filmmaking style, characterised by stationary shots, meticulously conceived tableaux, absurdist comedy, and an essential humanity. Fifteen years in the making, the final part of his trilogy, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014), was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.
The opening scene of World of Glory is a reconstruction of events during the Second World War and of the total brutality which marked “ethnic cleansings”. That term did not exist then, it was called the “final solution”, but meant the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and political dissidents. Human beings were put to death by, among other methods, gassing in diesel-driven, closed vans. The gas from the motor was piped into the storage compartment. These vans were the forerunners of the gas chamber.
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- This film was #22 in the “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025