Lars Von Trier shooting

Lars Von Trier gave his cinematographer and substantial financial support to South African filmmaker to make a film on a heroin addict.

So how exactly does a South African low-budget filmmaker get an award-winning cinematographer with credits such as The Last King of Scotland and 28 Days Later to join their movie project? In the case of Claire Angelique, it all came about after she turned to Denmark’s Zentropa Entertainment for funding of her drama My Black Little Heart.

Lars von Trier’s company, along with Germany’s Shotgun Pictures, underwrote the drama about a woman whose addiction to heroin leads her to – among other things – a descent into the world of Internet porn. As part of his involvement, von Trier also helped arrange for British born cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, who has worked on many of the filmmaker’s efforts, to perform the same duties for Ms. Angelique.

It seems to have paid off. After the recent debut of My Black Little Heart at the just completed 2008 Durban International Film Festival, the Mail & Guardian newspaper deemed the cinematography “breathtakikg,” while the website Filmmaker South Africa reported that “the film’s dark hipster subject matter caused a media and online [blogger] frenzy.”

It reads, in part: ‘A burnt fetus… A black heart pendant… A torn yellow dress… A neglected grandmother with bed sores, a suicide, a room hung with dildos, a web porn site, a video camera, a bottle of pills, a snake, a pig, two pregnancies, one baby, a Rastafarian with a record deal, a glass of milk, a syringe, nail polish and… a letter.’

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