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| Industry | Motion Picture |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animation, comedy, drama |
| Founded | 1992 |
| Founder | Lars von Trier and Peter Aalbæk Jensen |
| Headquarters | Hvidovre, Denmark |
Key people | Anders Kjaerhauge (CEO) |
| Products | Film |
| Website | zentropa |
Zentropa, or Zentropa Entertainments, is a Danish film company started in 1992 by director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen. [1] Zentropa is named after the train company Zentropa in the film Europa (1991), which started the collaboration between von Trier and Jensen.
It has produced over 70 feature films and has become the largest film production company in Scandinavia. It owns a number of subsidiary companies in Europe. [2] Zentropa is also responsible for creating a large studio complex called Filmbyen (Film City), where both Zentropa and many other film-related companies are located. [3]
Zentropa may be best known for creating the Dogme 95 movement, leading to such acclaimed films as Idioterne (1998), Festen (1998) and Mifunes sidste sang (1999). [4]
In 1998, von Trier made history by having his company Zentropa to be the world's first mainstream film company to produce hardcore pornographic films, under the division Puzzy Power. Three of these films, Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999), and the adult/mainstream crossover-feature All About Anna (2005), were made primarily for a female audience and were extremely successful in Europe, with the first two being directly responsible for the legalising of pornography in Norway in March 2006. [5]
Women too like to see other people having sex. What they don't like is the endless close-ups of hammering bodyparts without a story. Von Trier is the first to have realised this and produced valuable quality porn films for women.
Zentropa's initiative spearheaded a European wave of female-friendly porn films from directors such as Anna Span, Erika Lust and Petra Joy, while von Trier's company Zentropa was forced to abandon the experiment due to pressure from its English business partners. [7] In July 2009, women's magazine Cosmopolitan ranked Pink Prison as No. 1 in its Top Five of the best women's porn, calling it the "role model for the new porn-generation". [8]
In November 2017, in the wake of the Me Too movement, nine women – all former employees at Zentropa – spoke of an "ingrained" culture of abuse at the studio. Several of the those interviewed said that their treatment had prompted them to stop working in the film industry altogether. [9] [10] Jensen, the company's co-founder, was specifically accused of sexual misconduct and sidelined from operations. An internal memo stated that he would no longer exercise "influence on the daily leadership of the company [and] will not partake in any management meetings." [11] According to von Trier, Jensen stepped down and passed to Anders Kjaerhauge as CEO of Zentropa [12] when the former's further allegations of harassment came to light. [13]
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Zentropa won many awards and nominations from local ceremonies including Robert and Bodil, as well as two Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for In a Better World and Another Round, both were directed by critically acclaimed Dogme 95-competitors Susanne Bier and Thomas Vinterberg.
Lars von Trier is a Danish filmmaker, actor, and lyricist. Trier's career has spanned more than four decades and his works have gained notoriety for his trademarks including European frequent collaborators, different thematic trilogies, extreme cinema, mature subject matters, handheld camerawork, Rasmussen's costume design, genre and technical innovation, confrontational examination of existential, social, and political issues, and his treatment of subjects such as mercy, sacrifice, and mental health.
Hvidovre Kommune is a municipality in Region Hovedstaden near Copenhagen on the island of Zealand (Sjælland) in eastern Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 22 km2, and has a total population of 53,267. Its mayor is Anders Wolf Andresen, a member of the Green Left political party.
Dancer in the Dark is a 2000 musical drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It stars Icelandic musician Björk as a factory worker who suffers from a degenerative eye condition and is saving for an operation to prevent her young son from suffering the same fate. Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Cara Seymour, Peter Stormare, Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Joel Grey also star. The soundtrack for the film, Selmasongs, was written mainly by Björk, but a number of songs featured contributions from Mark Bell and some of the lyrics were written by von Trier and Sjón.
Breaking the Waves is a 1996 psychological drama film directed and co-written by Lars von Trier and starring English stage actress Emily Watson as her feature film acting debut, along with Stellan Skarsgård, a frequent collaborator with von Trier. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s, it is about an unusual young woman and of the love she has for her husband, who asks her to have sex with other men when he becomes immobilised from a work accident.
The Idiots is a 1998 Danish dark comedy-drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It is his first film made in compliance with the Dogme 95 Manifesto, and is also known as Dogme #2. It is the second film in von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy, preceded by Breaking the Waves (1996) and succeeded by Dancer in the Dark (2000). It is among the first films to be shot entirely with digital cameras.
Denmark has been producing films since 1897 and since the 1980s has maintained a steady stream of product due largely to funding by the state-supported Danish Film Institute. Historically, Danish films have been noted for their realism, religious and moral themes, sexual frankness and technical innovation.
All About Anna is a 2005 Danish erotic film directed by Jessica Nilsson and starring Gry Bay and Mark Stevens. The film is explicit in its exploration of sexual relationships.
Women's erotica is any erotic material that caters specifically to women target-demographic of various sexual preferences. When erotica is specifically directed at lesbians, it is referred to as lesbian erotica. Women's erotica is available from a variety of media including video games, websites, books, comics, short stories, films, photography, magazines, audio, anime and manga. The content may cover many aspects of sexuality, from relationships to fetishes; the main idea being to convey sex-positivism from a woman's perspective, or to feature female empowerment and sexual fantasies.
Evening Class is a 1996 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. It was adapted as the award-winning film Italian for Beginners (2000) by writer-director Lone Scherfig, who failed to formally acknowledge the source, although at the very end of the closing credits is the line 'with thanks to Maeve Binchy'.
Constance is a 1998 feminist erotic film directed by Knud Vesterskov and produced by Puzzy Power, a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa. It was the first hardcore pornographic film ever to have been produced by an established mainstream film studio.
Pink Prison is a 1999 erotic film for women, directed by Lisbeth Lynghøft, and produced by Puzzy Power, a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa.
Peter Aalbæk Jensen is a Danish film producer who in 1992 with director Lars von Trier founded the Danish film company Zentropa and later its huge studio complex Filmbyen. His father was writer Erik Aalbæk Jensen.
Puzzy Power is a Danish film company started in 1997 as a subsidiary to Lars von Trier's company Zentropa, with the goal of producing hardcore pornographic films for women. It is the only time ever a mainstream film company has openly produced hardcore pornographic films.
Filmbyen is a film studio complex located in Hvidovre just outside Copenhagen, Denmark.
Antichrist is a 2009 horror art film written and directed by Lars von Trier and starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It tells the story of a couple who, after the accidental death of their son, retreat to a cabin in the woods where the man experiences strange visions and the woman manifests increasingly violent sexual behavior and sadomasochism. The narrative is divided into a prologue, four chapters and an epilogue.
Innocent Pictures ApS is a Danish independent film company founded in 2001, originally as a subsidiary of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa, which is best known for the production of the erotic feature film All About Anna (2005), starring Gry Bay.
Dogme 95 is a 1995 avant-garde filmmaking movement founded by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" and the "Vows of Chastity". These were rules to create films based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology. It was supposedly created as an attempt to "take back power for the directors as artists", as opposed to the studio. They were later joined by fellow Danish directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, forming the Dogme 95 Collective or the Dogme Brethren. Dogme is the Danish word for dogma.
The 54th Bodil Awards were held on 4 March 2001 in the Imperial Cinema in Copenhagen, Denmark, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2000. Peter Mygind and Birgitte Raaberg hosted the event which was broadcast live on DR2.
Sisse Graum Jørgensen is a Danish film producer and sits on the board of the film company Zentropa. Films she has produced include Hævnen, Jagten, and Dear Wendy. She also sits on the advisory board for TrustNordisk, a Scandinavian international film distributor.
Truly Human, certified as Dogme #18, is a 2001 Danish drama film written and directed by Åke Sandgren, and starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Peter Mygind, and Susan Olsen. Produced by Lars von Trier's and Peter Aalbæk Jensen's company Zentropa, the film was created following the Dogme 95 rules, and is experimental in style and narrative.
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