Professor Peter Schepelern, one of this year’s SFS guests, is the foremost expert on von Trier’s contradictory personality. He accompanied von Trier during his student years and still remains in touch with him. And since von Trier is not a social butterfly, Schepelern often presents Trier’s films on festivals and other cultural events, doing something like a missionary work for him. This year’s SFS will bring out several Schepelern’s lectures and the whole section mapping the unknown parts of Trier’s career.
Schepelern’s opening lecture dealt with the filmmaker’s childhood which was merely formed by his broadminded mother. Lars usually received little support and assurance. That’s probably the cause of his lifelong anxieties. For example, when he asked his mother if he could die in his sleep, his mother, instead of having assured him that nothing like that was possible, told him that a certain probability is always at play. Nothing to envy indeed.
On Saturday, Schepelern talked about von Trier’s student films, including the depressive short Nocturno and the European trilogy (The Element of Cry, Epidemic, Europe).