On the occasion of an ongoing campaign of women speaking up about sexual harassment and assault they have experienced, artist Björk Guðmundsdóttir has also spoken up. While she does not name any names specifically, her post is quite clearly referring to Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier.
“When I turned the director down repeatedly he sulked and punished me and created for his team an impressive net of illusion where I was framed as the difficult one,” Björk writes in part. “Because of my strength, my great team and because I had nothing to loose having no ambitions in the acting world, I walked away from it and recovered in a years time. I am worried though that other actresses working with the same man did not. The director was fully aware of this game and i am sure of that the film he made after was based on his experiences with me.”
Lars has responded to this post in Jyllands Posten, saying that while it is no secret that he and Björk had a difficult relationship on the set of Dancer in the Dark, “There’s nothing to this case. Just look at the history of the making of this film. There were incidents, but I didn’t do this.”
Björk has said that Lars is sexist, saying that he uses women to give his films soul, “and he envies them and hates them for it”.
UPDATE, October 17: Björk has issued a more detailed follow-up on what she reportedly endured from Lars:
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