Lars Von Trier returning to Cannes Film Festival seven years after being banned for controversial Hitler comments

Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will close the festival

Danish director Lars von Trier (Getty Images)

Lars Von Trier, the controversial Danish director, will return to Cannes Film Festival this year, almost seven years after being banned.

While promoting the 2011 film Melancholia, Von Trier told press “I understand Hitler” and “I am a Nazi”, causing outrage and claims of anti-semitism.

The director later apologised profusely, explaining that the comments were a joke; yet he was still not invited back to Cannes to promote further projects.

Following a change of heart, Von Trier has been invited back to the festival with The House That Jack Built, a horror-thriller starring Matt Dillon as a serial killer, with Uma Thurman co-starring.

The film is said to be as brutal and extreme as Von Trier’s past work Antichrist, which also premiered at Cannes.

Cannes has also announced that Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will close the festival. The project has been in development hell for over two decades, with Jonathan Price and Adam Driver now starring. See the initial Cannes line-up here.