Lars von Trier is writing a horror movie set in Detroit for his fellow Dane Kristian Levring, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The controversial enfant terrible of European art house cinema is no stranger to the genre, having made waves at Cannes in 2009 with his lurid body horror Antichrist. He also paid tribute to US horror in 1990 with the Danish TV miniseries Riget (The Kingdom).
Von Trier has been writing the new film, currently titled Detroit, for a month following years of encouragement by Levring. It will be shopped to potential financiers at the current Cannes film festival. Levring is at the festival to present his western The Salvation, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green, which is showing in the Midnight Screenings section.
Von Trier himself has not been back to Cannes since organisers declared him "persona non grata" following a 2011 press conference for the film Melancholia in which he jokingly expressed empathy with Adolf Hitler. Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux confirmed last year, however, that the ban was no longer in place and the Danish film-maker was welcome to return to the Croisette.
