Lars von Trier

Born: 30 April 1956
Where: Copenhagen, Denmark

The Danish director is by turns one of the most exhilarating and numbingly frustrating film-makers working in Europe.

Ambitious and visually distinctive, he is one of the founding fathers of the "anti-bourgeoise" Dogme95 method of film-making.

The commandments laid down in the "vow of chastity" dictate only location work using handheld cameras and with the directors' name removed from the credits.

Von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature Element of Crime, which won the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes.

His subsequent features Epidemic and Europa were equally ambitious, the latter winning him the Cannes Jury Prize as well as the Technical Grand Prize and Best Artistic Contribution.

Breaking the Waves, for which he won the Jury Prize at Cannes, was the director's first film (in a trilogy) that centred on the female sex and featured Emily Watson.

With Icelandic singer Bjork starring, Dancer in the Dark followed an east European woman who sacrifices everything to save her son from getting the same eye-illness that she suffers from.

1998's controversial The Idiots featured an experimental group in Copenhagen who are determined to "bring out the inner idiot" in themselves.

Von Trier also created a huge hit with his TV soap The Kingdom (Riget) in which he blended his own cinematic style with a David Lynch-like Twin Peaks surrealistic story.

Together with producer Peter Ålbæk Jensen, Lars von Trier owns Zentropa Enterprizes, which produces his own film as well as many others.

In 2003 he directed Nicole Kidman in Dogville using an innovative film technique which saw him take a studio sound stage devoid of props and create a mythical US depression-era village.

He is also working on a film project set for completion in 2024 where he shoots only three minutes worth of the film each year on different locations all over Europe.

Recent work includes The Five Obstructions where he lays down rules and limitations on fellow film-maker Jorgen Leth's remake of his 1967 short The Perfect Human.