Songs from the Second Floor

Songs from the Second Floor (Swedish: Sånger från andra våningen) is a 2000 Swedish film written and directed by Roy Andersson. It presents a series of disconnected vignettes that together interrogate aspects of modern life. The film uses many quotations from the work of the Peruvian poet César Vallejo as a recurring motif. It is the first film of a trilogy, You, the Living being the second and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence being the third.

Contents
[hide]
 * 1 Plot
 * 2 Cast
 * 3 Awards and nominations
 * 4 See also
 * 5 References
 * 6 External links

Plot[edit]
A man is standing in a subway car, his face dirty with soot. In his right hand he carries a plastic bag with documents, or rather, the charred leftovers of them. In a corridor a man is clinging desperately to the legs of the boss who just fired him. He is screaming: "I've been here for thirty years!" In a coffee shop someone is waiting for his father, who just burned his furniture company for insurance money. Traffic jams and self-flagellating stock brokers are filling up the streets while an economist, desperate for a solution to the problem of work becoming too expensive, gazes into the crystal ball of a scryer. Everything and everyone is going somewhere but their goal and its meaning have disappeared along the way.

Cast[edit]

 * Lars Nordh as Kalle
 * Stefan Larsson as Stefan
 * Bengt C. W. Carlsson as Lennart
 * Torbjörn Fahlström as Pelle Wigert
 * Sten Andersson as Lasse
 * Rolando Núñez as the foreigner
 * Lucio Vucina as the magician
 * Per Jörnelius as the sawed man
 * Peter Roth as Tomas
 * Klas-Gösta Olsson as the speechwriter
 * Nils-Åke Eriksson as patient
 * Hanna Eriksson as Mia
 * Tommy Johansson as Uffe
 * Sture Olsson as Sven
 * Fredrik Sjögren as the Russian boy

Awards and nominations[edit]
Wins
 * Bodil Awards
 * Best Non-American Film (Bedste ikke amerikanske film) Roy Andersson (director)


 * Cannes Film Festival
 * Jury Prize (Roy Andersson)[2]


 * Brothers Manaki International Film Festival
 * Audience Award István Borbás


 * Norwegian International Film Festival
 * Norwegian Film Critics Award Roy Andersson

Nominations
 * Guldbagge Award
 * Best Film (Bästa film) Lisa Alwert
 * Best Direction (Bästa regi) Roy Andersson
 * Best Screenplay (Bästa manuskript) Roy Andersson
 * Best Cinematography (Bästa foto) István Borbás and Jesper Klevenas
 * Best Achievement (Bästa prestation) Jan Alvemark
 * Cannes Film Festival
 * Golden Palm[2]


 * British Independent Film Awards
 * Best Foreign Independent Film - Foreign Language