NYMPHOMANIAC TO DEBUT AT BERLIN FILM FEST

Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac Volume 1 — the uncut version — has been selected to be screen at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, the festival announced today (Friday). According to TrustNordisk, the film’s sales representative, it will be the only screening of the uncut version until it is released worldwide late next year. In a statement, Dieter Kosslick, the director of the festival, remarked, “The aesthetic [von Trier] has created in Nymphomaniac is impressive and radical.” Receiving such praise from the head of the prestigious festival may serve to offset some of the censure he received from the director of the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 when he joked about his family roots, claiming that he had learned that his father may have been a Nazi and that he, therefore, by dint of birth may also be a Nazi. (“I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew … Then I found out that I was really a Nazi. … What can I say? I now understand Hitler … How can I get out of this?”) Von Trier is reportedly expected to attend the screening and will likely draw a crowd of protesters. The film, which will screen out of competition, has a cast that includes Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, and Willem Dafoe.