I had the privilege of being involved with the 13th It's All True Documentary Film Festival, which took place in São Paulo from March 26 to April 6. The guest of honor was prolific Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth, who many know solely as Lars von Trier's adversary in The Five Obstructions, but has had long and varied careers as poet and director of (primarily) documentary films for over 40 years.

For a variety of reasons, many directors who visit São Paulo are usually intimidated by the sprawl of the city and/or are a bit paranoid about their safety - but that was not the case with Jørgen, as he has lived in Haiti for 20 years! He had also already been to Brazil before, filming scenes for his 1986 doc Moments of Play (complete with a musical score by his hero Tom Jobim).

This time around, Jørgen is in Brazil to film what he considers one of his most challenging projects yet: a documentary called The Erotic Human. It's a project he's been working on for years, and he confessed that he considered abandoning it in the heat of a scandal that involved his published memoirs in Denmark in 2005. Since then, with the encouragement of his producer Lars von Trier (who seems to have gotten over his Oedipal complex and does not want to destroy his mentor anymore... at least for the time being), Jørgen has once again taken up the project and is currently filming in Manaus (in the Amazon) with his cameraman and long-time collaborator Dan Holmberg. I'm pretty curious to see what will result.

Below is the famous "My name is Andy Warhol and I just ate a hamburger" scene from Jørgen's 66 Scenes from America.