Ulla-Britt Söderlund

Ulla-Britt Söderlund
Born	(1943-08-12)August 12, 1943 Växjö, Sweden
Died	July 21, 1985(1985-07-21) (aged 41) Copenhagen, Denmark
Occupation	Costume designer
Years active	1966–1985

Ulla-Britt Söderlund (August 12, 1943 – July 21, 1985) was a Swedish costume designer. She is best known for her collaborations with directors Jan Troell and Stanley Kubrick. She won an Academy Award in the category Best Costume Design for the film Barry Lyndon (1975).

Career

Söderlund began her career creating the costumes for various Danish-Swedish screen co-productions. Her first major film credit was in Henning Carlsen's 1966 black-and-white drama Hunger, which was based on Knut Hamsun's 1890 novel of the same name. She again worked with Carlsen the following year, this time on the romantic comedy People Meet and Sweet Music Fills the Heart, which was an adaptation of Jens August Schade's 1944 novel. She then designed costumes for Mai Zetterling's 1968 dramatic adaptations, Doctor Glas and The Girls.

In the following years, Söderlund collaborated with many renowned directors, such as Gabriel Axel, Jan Troell, Stanley Kubrick, and Hans Alfredson, among others. In particular, her meticulous work on Troell's 1971 historical drama The Emigrants as well as its 1972 sequel, The New Land, garnered a great deal of attention and launched her to international prominence. Along with other career prospects, she and Milena Canonero worked together on the authentic 18th-century wardrobes for Kubrick's 1975 epic Barry Lyndon. That ambitious project required a year and a half of preparing the costumes, studying paintings, and reading books to reproduce garments for the screen. Their remarkable efforts received critical and audience admiration, ultimately winning them the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. Söderlund was the first Swedish designer ever to win in the category.^[1]

In the late 1970s, Söderlund worked on the acclaimed Danish television series Matador. Among her last notable film credits was designing the wardrobe for Alfredson's 1982 drama film, The Simple-Minded Murder.

Selected film credits

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1966	Hunger	Henning Carlsen	Co-designed with Ada Skolmen
1967	Hagbard and Signe	Gabriel Axel	Also known as The Red Mantle
	People Meet and Sweet Music Fills the Heart	Henning Carlsen	Co-designed with Lotte Dandanell
1968	Doctor Glas	Mai Zetterling
	The Girls
1969	Jazz All Around	Knud Leif Thomsen	Co-designed with Elva Nordli
1971	The Emigrants	Jan Troell
	Med kærlig hilsen	Gabriel Axel	Co-designed with Elva Nordli
	Bedside Dentist	John Hilbard	Co-designed with Elva Nordli
1972	1001 Danish Delights	Sven Methling	Co-designed with Berit Mørkeberg
	The New Land	Jan Troell
1975	Barry Lyndon	Stanley Kubrick	Co-designed with Milena Canonero
1977	The Assignment	Mats Arehn
1981	Jeppe på bjerget	Kaspar Rostrup	Co-designed with Annelise Siegstad
1982	The Simple-Minded Murderer	Hans Alfredson

Awards and nominations

Award	Year	Category	Work	Result	Ref.
Academy Awards	1976	Best Costume Design	Barry Lyndon	Won	[2]
British Academy Film Awards	1976	Best Costume Design	Barry Lyndon	Nominated	[3]

Illness and death

Söderlund died of cancer on 21 July 1985. She was diagnosed with the disease in the spring of that year.^[4]

See also

• List of Nordic Academy Award winners and nominees

References

1. "Oscar". Swedish Film Institute (SFI). Archived from the original on October 6, 2024. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
2. "The 48th Academy Awards (1976) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on November 9, 2014. Retrieved July 16, 2023.
3. "The 29th British Academy Film Awards (1976) Nominees and Winners". British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Archived from the original on April 29, 2014. Retrieved July 16, 2023.
4. https://www.smp.se/lordag/ulla-britt-fran-vaxjo-fick-kla-filmens-stjarnor/ Swedish article on her life and death, and interview with her son from 2016.

External links

• Ulla-Britt Söderlund at IMDb