Director Lars von Trier Diagnosed With Parkinson’s Disease

Lars von Trier has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Zentropa announced. The production company, which von Trier co-founded in 1992 with producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, said the director is in “good spirits and is being treated for his symptoms” while he continues to complete “The Kingdom Exodus,” the upcoming third and final season of his “The Kingdom” series.

Zentropa added that von Trier will take part in limited press events for the series when it’s released later this year. “The Kingdom Exodus” is world premiering at the Venice Film Festival. Mubi announced in July that it had secured distribution rights to the television season in North America, U.K. and Ireland, Latin America, Turkey and India.

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“The Kingdom Exodus” closes the controversial director’s TV series, which first premiered in 1994 on Danish public broadcaster DR. The series follows the staff and patients of a neurosurgical ward in a Copenhagen hospital. In Season 3, sleepwalker Karen seeks answers to the unresolved questions of the series in order to save the hospital from doom. “The gate to the Kingdom is opening once more…” teases an official synopsis for the series.

The new season’s cast includes Mikael Persbrandt, Lars Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Tuva Novotny, with Alexander Skarsgård and David Dencik guest-starring.

Von Trier co-wrote “The Kingdom Exodus” with Niels Vørsel. The two previously scripted earlier seasons of the show. Von Trier’s other credits include “The House That Jack Built” (2018), “Nymphomaniac” (2014), “Melancholia” (2011) and “Dogville” (2004). His 2000 musical “Dancer in the Dark,” starring Bjork,” won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Danish filmmaker was famously banned for seven years from the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 for declaring at a “Melancholia” press conference that he “sympathized” with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

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