In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.
An elegant and humorous film—in the guise of a serious anthropological treatise—spotlights "The Perfect Human," a model of the modern Dane created by our wishful thinking.
As a visual narrative it is reminiscent of a pile of postcards from a journey, which indeed is what the film is. It consists of a series of lengthy shots of a tableau nature, each appearing to be a more or less random cross section of American reality, but which in total invoke a highly emblematic picture of the USA.
The film has been ten years in the making, and over time it has grown to become what the director himself has called an artistic testament. It is simultaneously his most personal and most provocative film. A film about growing older, about losing, about the special moments one remembers, and about the director's own circling around the essence of eroticism.
A documentary short about the director's home town of Aarhus, Denmark.
When the media storm flared up in the wake of Jørgen Leth's memoir "The Imperfect Man" in 2005, it was mainly due to the passage about Leth's erotic relationship with the chef's young daughter. While the storm was still raging, friend and journalist Jørgen Flindt Pedersen contacted Jørgen Leth, who had been hiding from the public, to hear his reaction. "The price of sensuality" follows Leth for a year after its publication, in quiet moments outside the limelight, until the farewell the following late summer, when Leth goes home to Haiti.
Krzysztof Komeda was a jazz pianist and film composer. With compositions like the lullaby for Rosemary's Baby (1968) by Roman Polanski, Komeda succeeded in writing his own chapter in the history of soundtracks. This documentary follows the life story of the composer by the means of his melodic sounds. It is a reflection on his soundtracks, which changed the common film scores forever. It is a contemporary document about the attitude to life in a time of social, political and cultural change after war, about work and exodus of Polish artists in the 50s and 60s. A story about how film music is created and how it affects people. Directors who worked with Komeda and who are also friends talk about him: Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Henning Carlsen and Andrzej Wajda. His wife, Zofia Komeda, and his sister, Irena Orlowska, recollect him.
What are the consequences of a young person to be famous at an early age, being a public person? "Født til Filmen" is about the Danish actress Stine Bierlich's (1967 - 2007) life and career. Through interviews with herself, with her family - Ann Bierlich (mother), Asger Leth (brother), Jørgen Leth (stepfather), friends and people from the film industry it tells us about Stine's life from being a child actress to becoming a celebrated young star of the 80's. The film is a comment on today's worshipping of stars, and how fame has almost become a drug in itself. It’s as if here’s every answer to any doubt. But as Stine's story shows, reality can actually be the opposite.
A documentary and series of interviews about the ABCinema movement/production group.
Jørgen Leth can squeeze poetry from a stone and wit from dust, and he can find love where the milk of human kindness runs dry. In a series of tableaux of Life in Denmark, he carries absurdism to a happy extreme. To act out his minuscule non-dramas, he uses a motley crew of professional actors like Ghita Nørby and Claus Nissen, writer Dan Turéll plus a snake charmer, a bicycle racer and a circus queen.
Jørgen Leth looks back at more than 50 years as a filmmaker in a cheerful film, whose contagious enthusiasm initiates us in his special poetry.
Documentary about Danish filmmaker, sports journalist and poet Jørgen Leth who struggles after surviving a major earthquake in Haiti.
A documentary about the interaction of skateboarding and public space. Shot in 2006 on 16mm Film and Mini-DV as part of the Fuel TV experiment.
The rules are simple in Senegalese wrestling: First man down, loses. The sport derives from ritual manhood trials and has developed into a national sport with packed stadiums and huge prizes. Today, the fight is supplemented with bare knuckle boxing but without any protection. The 22-year-old cattle herder Ndoff has been chosen to compete in an annual talent event in Dakar, and faces a possible breakthrough as a pro wrestler. LAAMB is the story of a sport filled with myths and extreme voodoo rituals, and a modern tale about fighting one’s way out of poverty.
Documentary about filmmaker and film lover Stig Björkman during the pandemic year of 2020 when he stay in touch with his friends over his laptop.
Frank is left with the responsibility for his nephew Bo on an already planned canoe trip. Frank's mate Casper is also coming along. Weighed down a with their obligation, Frank and Casper nevertheless look forward to ending the trip at Skanderborg Festival where there's plenty there for the guys, a spree of drinking and women. Not the best example to set for young Bo. And how do their partners see it all?