VON TRIER, WHO JOKED ABOUT HITLER, IS HAILED IN BERLIN

Lars Von Trier, who was declared persona non grata by the Cannes Film Festival last May after joking about Hitler and the Nazis at a press conference, became the leading contender at the 24th European Film Awards over the weekend, when his end-of-the-world film Melancholia was nominated in eight of the competition’s nine categories. Five films were tied in second place with four nominations each. Other films nominated in the Best Film category include Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech, Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist, the Dardenne brothers’ The Kid With a Bike, Susanne Bier’s In a Better World, and Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre. Winners will be announced at award ceremonies, hosted by the 2,500-member European Film Academy, in Berlin on December 2.