“My philosophy is to create pictures that are very, very clean, purified and condensed and easy to see.  They are very clear also.  Almost close to cartoons.  And why?  Yes I think, I would say like Matisse, the French painter, I take away everything that’s not necessary for the picture.”

“it's not certain that the best thing is to be realistic. Waiting for Godot says a lot about our time, but it's a timeless play. The characters are just talking gossip, nonsense, but at the same time they're talking about us.”

Andersson was born in Gothenburg, but little is published about his early life.  He went to film school and shortly after leaving produced his first feature film A Swedish Love Story which was a critical and popular success, although somewhat different in style to his subsequent film-making.  His second feature, made after a period of depression, was the exact opposite - a critical and popular flop that went well over budget and made him a pariah to the Swedish film industry.  So he turned to making commercials.  Over the next twenty five years he made several hundred of them, and developed the style that became so uniquely his own.  He also made a couple of shorts, one of which World of Glory frequently appears in the top ten lists of short films.  His success with commercials and short films enabled him to set up his own production company and eventually he made Songs from the Second Floor which was a huge success at Cannes.  You the Living followed, with similar success and he is now working on two more ideas for films.