Lars von Trier turns to crowdsourcing for new film



The Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has launched a user-generated project that seeks cinematic reinterpretations of well-known works by several artists such as Paul Gauguin and August Strindberg.

Produced by the Copenhagen Art Festival and dubbed Gesamt (come together), the project is calling for five-minute film submissions from around the world inspired by any of these six sources: Gauguin's painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?; Strindberg's play The Father; James Joyce's novel Ulysses; sonatas by the French composer Cesar Franck; numbers performed by the entertainer Sammy Davis Jr; and the Zeppelinfeld monument in Nuremberg by Adolf Hitler's chief architect Albert Speer.

The submissions will be assembled into a single cohesive work by the Danish director Jenle Hallund, one of von Trier's script consultants, and will premiere on October 12 in Copenhagen. "The material can be raw and unedited, animated and polished, with audio, without audio, consist of still images, black and white or in colour – only your imagination and the six art works set the limits," said von Trier in a statement.

Entries can be submitted online until September 6. Visit www.gesamt.org for details.