les presses du réel

The seven most exciting hours of Mr. Trier's life in twenty-four chapters

Keren Cytter - The seven most exciting hours of Mr. Trier\'s life in twenty-four chapters
An adventure novel based on a true story told in a televised interview by the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier, describing seven hours in the life of Tibor Klaus Trier—Lars von Trier's father—from the moment that his wife goes into labor early in the morning until Lars is born.
The setting is Copenhagen, dominated by a hospital that recalls von Trier's television series “The Kingdom.” The plot is thick: Tibor arrives with his wife Margaret at the Maternity Ward of Mercy General Hospital, only to realize that he must return home to retrieve a forgotten mobile—his only link to a sister in distress. On the way, he stops to get gas and gets involved in a car robbery. A cancer takes root in his body. Back at home, he sneaks a peak at Margaret's e-mail and a great secret is revealed that makes him rush back to the hospital to kill her and her son. En route he crashes his new car and his body breaks into pieces and he loses his memory. Mercy General is haunted by a great ghost and the day is Armageddon when the ghost needs to challenge the living with an army of zombie children—all born within its walls. Who is this great ghost? What does Margaret hold in her body? Will Tibor survive his one day old cancer? All and more will be revealed…
Keren Cytter (born 1977 in Tel Aviv, lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin) is an Israeli visual artist and filmaker.
Her topics often include love stories, violence, sex and murder. She applies a non-linear narrative, the stories often shot with a hand-held camera. The actors—amateurs and friends of the artist, but more recently professional actors—switch roles with each other, or read their stage directions out loud. Scenes are repeated, but with a different course of events, with voiceovers or alternative dialogues. The films are usually set in simply-furnished apartments, especially the kitchen regions, suggesting a connection to kitchen sink realism. The literary tone of the dialogue, however, is far from realistic. “Instead the films are deliberate hybrids between seemingly incompatible genres, between home videos and auteur films in the spirit of the French nouvelle vague, between Dogme and docu-soap or sitcom. But her films are above all existential dramas about the human condition, about love and hate in our thoroughly medialised age" (Magnus af Petersens).
Keren Cytter has rapidly established herself internationally as one of the most interesting and unique artists on the contemporary art scene. At the mere age of 33, in the last years she has produced more than 50 video works, written three novels and an opera libretto, started the dance and theatre company D.I.E. Now, won awards and is the darling of the art press. Her critically acclaimed film works and drawings have been exhibited in leading institutions throughout Europe and North America, including the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (Vienna), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), the Museum of Modern Art (Dublin), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York). She has also participated in prestigious international exhibitions such as the 9e Biennale de Lyon, Manifesta 7 (Trento), the Yokohama Triennale of 2008, and the Venice Biennale 2009.

See also Poetic Series (edited by Keren Cytter); Keren Cytter Does Not Like to Share – A one-sided account by Mathilde Supe.
Translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Roman.
Co-published with Witte de With.
 
published in 2008
English edition
14 x 21 cm (softcover)
194 pages (4 b/w ill.)
 
19.00
 
ISBN : 978-1-933128-41-2
EAN : 9781933128412
 
in stock
 
The seven most exciting hours of Mr. Trier's life in twenty-four chapters The seven most exciting hours of Mr. Trier's life in twenty-four chapters The seven most exciting hours of Mr. Trier's life in twenty-four chapters


 top of page