[SOUND] Contemporary Danish cinema enjoys
considerable international attention,
much more than the yearly output of typically 20 feature films and
five to ten documentaries can explain.
Directors such as Susanne Bier, Lone Scherfig, Billie August,
Nikolaj Arcel, and Thomas Vinterberg have received
prestigious prizes and won general recognition abroad.
But undoubtedly, the leading Danish filmmaker is Lars von Trier.
He is the most widely admired Danish filmmaker since Karl Theodor Trier.
And he stands out as a controversial auteur who persists
in serving up surprising artistic provocations,
distinguished by intellectual acuity, satirical bite and
a pinch of perversion, along with an always fearless desire
to discover new possible expressions in cinematic language and narratives.
This lecture will be about his early work.