Cult director von Trier plans DR drama

Controversial film director Lars von Trier to readying an English-language TV series for Denmark’s DR two decades after he last worked with the pubcaster.

He will write and direct The House that Jack Built, which will be a coproduction between Zentropa and DR.

The news came yesterday from producer Louise Vesth and Zentropa CEO Peter Aalbæk Jensen during a press conference at the Venice International Film Festival, where the director’s cut of von Trier’s Nymphomaniac Volume 2 is screening.

The House that Jack Built will have a “huge” international cast and is expected to start shooting in 2016.

“The House that Jack Built will be a TV series without precedent; a TV series as you have never seen it before and never will again,” said Aalbæk Jensen.

The news also comes 20 years after von Trier’s cult DR drama The Kingdom.

“Lars von Trier did The Kingdom at DR and made a minor revolution with the series,” DR’s head of drama Piv Bernth told Nordisk Film og TV Fund. “Now that he has decided to give TV series another go, DR is the natural partner for Zentropa and him.”