Danish director Lars von Trier (66) has Parkinson’s disease. His film production company Zentropa announced this in a press release.
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His television series will end at the end of this month The Kingdom Exodus world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Because the director wanted to prevent ‘speculations about his health’ in the run-up to the premiere, a short announcement was made on Monday: at the beginning of this summer, Von Trier was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In Parkinson’s disease, the nerve cells that produce dopamine die. As a result, patients may suffer from problems with their speech, memory or balance.
‘Lars’ mood is good and he is being treated for his symptoms. The work to The Kingdom Exodus completion is going ahead as planned,” Louise Vesth, one of the producers with whom von Trier is working, said in the statement.
The Kingdom Exodus is the third and final season of The Kingdom (of Realm in Danish), Von Trier’s TV series set in the neurological ward of a hospital where supernatural things happen. The first season was released in 1994, followed by another season in 1997.
Nazi
Von Trier is one of the most polarizing filmmakers of his generation. He is also the director of Dancer in the dark, Dogville, Breaking the waves, Antichrist in Melancholia. Together with Firmdirector Thomas Vinterberg, he founded the filmmakers collective Dogma 95 in 1995, which adhered to strict rules during filming, such as not using sound effects or extra lighting.
He is known as an incorrigible provocateur – and not just for his sensational films. After he spoke about his film in 2011 at the press conference Melancholia had said he was a Nazi, he was banned from the Cannes Film Festival for years.
In 2018 he was allowed to return to Cannes to The house that Jack built a film about a serial killer, played by Matt Dillon, who slaughters women and children and raves about the Nazis. Due to the explicit violence, a hundred spectators left the hall during the premiere, shocked.
Journalists noted even then that von Trier was trembling and had difficulty moving. According to his press spokesperson, this was the result of his medication that he was taking for his chronic anxiety and depression. “I’m recovering from depression,” von Trier said after the premiere in an interview with this newspaper. ‘The recordings for The house that Jack built were exceptionally heavy. I broke down with fears. But work is beneficial for me. Making movies is the only thing I can relax on.’
In 2017, singer Björk, who worked with von Trier during Dancer in the dark, the Dane of sexual harassment—though she never mentioned him by name. Von Trier has always denied the accusation.
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