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Lars von Trier (born April 30, 1956 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish film director closely associated with the Dogme95 collective calling for a return to plausible stories in filmmaking and a move away from artifice and towards technical minimalism.
Since his breakthrough in 1984 with The Element of Crime (Forbrydelsens Element), von Trier has been recognised as Denmarks most gifted director, the man with the talent to take the reputation of Denmark as an international movie-making nation into the next century. Von Triers previous work, which has harvested a series of major awards, is spiced with black humour and sprinkled lavishly with quotes from other masterpieces of cinema history.
Von Trier graduated from the Danish Film School in 1983 and the films he made as a student, Nocture (Nocture, 1981) and Image of Liberation (Befrielsesbilleder, 1982) both won Best Film awards at the Munich Film Festival 1984, an award which he again won in 1991 for Europa (US title, Zentropa), which also won the Prix du Jury at Cannes Film Festival and picked up awards at other major festivals. His 1987 film Epidemic was also shown as part of the official programme at Cannes.
For television von Trier directed Medea (1988) which won the Jean d'Arcy prize in France, and The Kingdom (Riget, 1994) and The Kingdom II (Riget II, 1997), a pair of miniseries about a haunted hospital. A projected third installment in the series has been derailed due to the death of Ernst-Hugo Järegård, who played Helmer, one of the major characters. A thirteen-episode American television series, based on The Kingdom, was written by Stephen King, under the title Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital, which was broadcast in 2004.
Breaking the Waves (1996) won the Grand Prix at Cannes. The film featured Emily Watson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Lars von Trier overcame his dislike of traveling to present the second Dogme film, The Idiots (Idioterne, 1998), in person at the Cannes film festival. As instructor and originator of the Dogme95 concept, which led to international interest in Danish film as a whole, he has inspired filmmakers all over the world.
In 2000, von Trier premiered a musical featuring the renowned Icelandic musician Björk, Dancer in the Dark. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
He is currently (2004) working on Manderlay, the second film in his USA trilogy. The first film in that trilogy, Dogville, starred Nicole Kidman, and met with extremely mixed critical reaction.
Von Trier added the "von" to his name when his peers at film school nicknamed him "von Trier". He also reportedly added the "von" in homage to Erich von Stroheim.
He has described himself in Interview magazine (June 1989) as "a melancholy Dane masturbating in the dark to images on the silver screen."
He has never been to the United States as he refuses to fly.
Filmography:
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