He was born in Vedb?k, Denmark in 1950. He graduated from the Danish Film School in 1976. From 1971 to 1978 he worked with the famous Danish theatre group “Solvognen”. He has lectured extensively at film schools and universities throughout Europe and apart from his main profession of writing, directing and producing films he has published poetry, essays and a novel. He has played a prominent role on the Danish film scene since the 1980s and remains one of the Denmark’s most innovative documentarists. He has written and directed more than forty films, both documentaries and feature films. The director’s signature hybrid style combines documentary and fictional interpretations, and many of his documentaries are visually and symbolically powerful, often staged portraits of ordinary or marginal figures and milieus. He has made films in the United States, in Germany, in Ireland, in South Africa, and in Latvia (Cats [2014]). He and his Irish wife have four children.
Filmography
1972 - Stupid Sara (short)
1974 - Wounded Knee (short)
1975 - The Santa Claus Action (short)
1975 - The Lighthouse (short)
1976 - Sand upon Roses (fiction)
1977 - Jenny
1977 - En fisker i Hanstholm/A man from Hanstholm (fiction)
1979 - En rig mand/A Rich Man (fiction)
1980 - N?ste stop paradis/Next Stop – Paradise (fiction)
1981 - Hotel of the Stars (fiction)
1981 - You are beautiful I love you (fiction)
1983 - The Controller
1984 - Phoenix Bird
1984 - The Long Day
1985 - Ofelia kommer til byen/Ophelia Comes to Town (fiction)
1986 - Before the Guests Arrive (short)
1987 - First I Wanted to Find the Truth
1988 - Time Out (fiction)
1988 - Baby Doll (fiction)
1990 - Ich bin auch ein Berliner
1993 - Life Will be Lived
1995 - Carmen and Babyface (fiction)
1996 - It’ s Now or Never
1996 - How to Invent Reality
1996 - My Irish diary (short)
1997 - Strange Fruit
1997 - Through Irish Eyes (short)
1999 - Addicted to Solitude
1999 - My African Diary (short)
2000 - Return to Sender
2001 - Portrait of God
2002 - Zuma the Puma
2004 - En gammel bamses fort?lling/The Confessions of an Old Teddy Bear (short)
2007 - Blinde engle/Blinded Angels
2008 - Purity Beats Everything
2013 - I k?rlighedens navn/Just the Right Amount of Violence (fiction)
2014 - Cats in Riga (short)
2015 - Deja Vu
