Von Trier to show uncut 'Nymphomaniac' at Berlin fest

BERLIN - Agence France-Presse

French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (L), Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgaard (3rd from L) and actress Stacy Martin (R) and Danish film director Lars von Trier (2rd from L) pose during a photocall to promote von Triers's new movie 'Nymphomaniac' on December 4, 2013 in Copenhagen. Nymphomaniac will be released in Denmark on December 25, 2013. AFP photo

Scandal-courting Danish director Lars von Trier will premiere the uncut version of his new erotic epic "Nymphomaniac" at the Berlin film festival in February, organisers said Friday.
 
The 64th Berlinale, the first major European cinema showcase of the year, will screen the explicit coming-of-age tale starring Charlotte Gainsbourg alongside Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman and Willem Dafoe out of competition.
 
The festival will show Volume One in its full length of two and a half hours. The uncut Volume Two at a length of around three hours will not be screened in Berlin.
 
A shorter version of Volumes One and Two, at about one hour 50 minutes and two hours respectively, will open worldwide in cinemas from December 25.
 
The film has already made waves for its extensive nudity and no-holds-barred sex scenes after a handful of critics' previews.
 
"Berlinale audiences will be the first to see the long uncut version of Nymphomaniac Volume I," festival director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement. "Lars von Trier, a guest of the Berlinale for the first time in 1984, returns to the festival with this film. The aesthetic he has created in Nymphomaniac is impressive and radical." The festival described "Nymphomaniac" as the "wild and poetic" story of a woman's sexual awakening from birth to age 50, told in eight chapters.
 
Once a favourite of the Cannes film festival, von Trier was ignominiously booted out in 2011 for making a Nazi joke about himself at a press conference.
 
Von Trier, 57, won the Cannes Palme d'Or in 2000 for the death-row melodrama "Dancer in the Dark" starring Bjork and Catherine Deneuve and picked up its Jury Grand Prize for "Breaking the Waves" in 1996.
 
Kirsten Dunst won best actress in Cannes in 2011 for her role in von Trier's end-of-days picture "Melancholia".
 
The Berlinale will open on February 6 with an all-star romp by US director Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel", and wrap up on February 16.