'Nymphomaniac' Will Miss Cannes Film Festival Submission Deadline, Producer Says Film Is Lars Von Trier's "Masterpiece"

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by Kevin Jagernauth
February 12, 2013 8:05 AM
8 Comments

With winter's chill still felt, the spring might seem far away, and while we will have our attention on the Berlin International Film Festival and SXSW in March, we're only a few months away from the Cannes Film Festival. Easily the most prestigious movie festival on the calendar, we'll soon start to see talk heat up about what films will -- and won't -- be making an appearance. And while Lars von Trier's hugely buzzed "Nymphomaniac" has been grabbing headlines in recent days as buyers swarm the movie in Berlin, it won't be headed to the Cannes for a premiere like many speculated. But not for the reason you're thinking of.

While the Lars von Trier has been declared persona non grata, it turns out that "Nymphomaniac" was trying to make the deadline for inclusion, but the massive two-film effort simply won't be finished in time to submit for consideration. "Four editors were working around the clock to meet the Cannes deadline, but we had to give it up - after 268 script pages, 11 weeks of shooting and with 100 hours of material it would have been [a race] to finish the two films in time for the festival," producer and CEO of Zentrope Entertainments Peter Aalbæk Jensen told Cineuropa. "But there is absolutely no bad blood between us."

In case you're wondering, feature films must be submitted officially to the festival by March 14th. But we're also sure organizers would bend the rules if it meant getting one of the year's most talked about films on the red carpet. But mostly it just seems that von Trier, who shot the film last fall, doesn't want to rush the cut on two movies, and that's pretty understandable.

And until we see it, producers will certainly keep the expectations sky high with TrustNordisk Managing Director Rikke Ennis proclaiming that once "Nymphomaniac" premieres it "will rock the entire cinema landscape." Meanwhile, Jensen ups the ante even further, saying, "it is von Trier's most ambitious film to date, probably his masterpiece...it brings a smile to my face watching lust and laughter go hand in hand with such a drama."

All this said, the film is still expected to premiere somewhere in 2013, but you can scratch Cannes. Venice and TIFF -- start working those phones....

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More: Nymphomaniac, Cannes Film Festival, Lars von Trier, Charlotte Gainsbourg

8 Comments

| Reply
ash | February 13, 2013 3:16 AMReply

um...but according to IMDb, it'll be released in Denmark and Swenden in the end of May...?
zatopek | February 12, 2013 1:48 PMReply

Von Trier Almost Raped A Nymphomaniac! Read all about it!
Alex | February 12, 2013 10:48 AMReply

uuuuuh "it would have been rape to finish"??
Deborah | February 12, 2013 10:29 AMReply

" it would have been a rape to the finsh..." It's kinda obvious he meant to type a "race" to the finish. Sometimes the fingers type faster than the brain can proofread. Nothing mysoginistic in that sentence.
nothnx | February 12, 2013 9:12 AMReply

"it would have been rape to finish the two films in time for the festival." Are you kidding me? JFC this is going to be the most misogynistic film ever made isn't it.
AE | February 12, 2013 2:26 PM

@Boringplatitudes maybe you're right we've become unshockable in that salacious kind of way, but that's not the exploration I mean and I think it's unfair to focus on CG's tits or suggest Von Trier is just playing with the usual bag of bad boy tricks. It's not the tits or the sex I find disturbing, it's his understanding of the darkness in human kind. The actions of human beings never fail to shock me and for me at least he's one of the few film makers prepared to go there.
boringplatitudes | February 12, 2013 11:55 AM

AE, "decent folk"? Really? The world really isn't set up anymore for such shock tactics, and any attempts to play bad boy in such a way is bound to end up in sheer lameness. It's disturbing to constantly discover the ever-lowering bar of what is considered "art" in the 21st Century. Not to say that it won't be good, (although I'm not going to take the Producer's word that it is a 'masterpiece'), but I'm also not going to wait in breathless anticipation to see Charlotte Gainsbourg's tits, either.
AE | February 12, 2013 10:09 AM

Misogynistic really? I dunno, I'm just happy someone still dares to explore the things 'decent' folk run screaming from. Does anyone know what the deal is concerning the 2 parts, is it a 2 part story or do they mean the soft/hard core versions?