If he was indeed joking, Lars Von Trier needs to work a bit on his act, not to mention the material. The notoriously difficult Danish director shocked the crowd at France’s Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday by proclaiming, during a panel about his new film, “Melancholia,” “I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes. … But I understand much about him, and I sympathize with him a little bit.”

And that wasn’t all he said, as the clip below shows. Cannes officials responded by banning Von Trier from the festival, despite his attempts to apologize. –KA

BBC:

The 55-year-old is a previous winner of the festival’s Palme d’Or award and is renowned for courting controversy.

The festival said it had been “disturbed” by the 55-year-old’s comments and had asked him to “provide an explanation”.

“The director states that he let himself be egged on by a provocation,” its initial statement read.

“The festival is adamant that it would never allow the event to become the forum for such pronouncements on such subjects.”

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The Telegraph via YouTube:

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