🎬 Europa trilogy: Epidemic (1987)

Lars von Trier | 1987 | Denmark | 106’ | EN subtitles

The now rarely screened Europa trilogy was a major breakthrough for cult Danish director Lars von Trier. It moves between expressionism, surrealism, and avant-garde formalism; the trilogy constructs a dreamlike, often nightmarish vision of a continent haunted by its own history. Those films portray the European continent as an entity that lacks coherent cultural identity and is built on unresolved generational traumas as well as obsolete ideologies.

Epidemic, the second instalment of the trilogy, is also the oddest and perhaps most elusive of the three. This self-reflexive creation takes the form of a quasi-documentary chronicle of the development of a screenplay for a film that was never made, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, creation and performance. Starring Lars von Trier himself as Dr. Messmer, the film unfolds as a truly bizarre journey into the process of filmmaking. Interwoven with this narrative is a parallel storyline depicting epidemics that have ravaged Europe throughout history, gradually transforming the fictional screenplay into a dark, apocalyptic vision.

This screening is a part of our programme dedicated to Lars von Trier’s Europa trilogy. Please see the full programme below:

07/11 | The Element of Crime (1984)
11/11 | Epidemic (1987)
18/11 | Europa (1991)