Jørgen Leth

Born in 1937 in Aarhus, Denmark, Jørgen Leth is not only one of the most unique living directors of our time, but also a writer, poet, journalist and cycling commentator. As a young man, the auteur director, who still keeps his connection with sports alive today, was actively involved in cycling and table tennis in his youth.

 

After studying literature at the University of Aarhus and ethnography at the University of Copenhagen, Leth began a career in journalism, writing reviews on jazz music and cinema. At the same time, Leth began to write about travelling and sports, and in 1962 he had his poems published for the first time. Shortly thereafter, in 1963, he began his directing career with Stop for Bud, a portrait documentary about the famous jazz pianist Bud Powell, and became an important figure in the experimental documentary scene of the 1960s.

 

Throughout his career, Jørgen Leth has left many outstanding works in the history of cinema, most notably his sports documentaries, which cemented his unforgettable signature. With 1974's The Stars and Water Carriers and 1977's A Sunday in Hell, he created the most legendary representations of cycling on the silver screen. From tennis to the pelota, from boxing to football, the director did not spare many sports from his unique touch and fully deserved his reputation as the great master of sports documentaries.

 

In 2003, Leth competed at the Venice Film Festival with the film The Five Obstructions, which he co-directed with Lars von Trier, one of the most well-known faces of Danish cinema, and was honoured on one of the biggest stages of the cinema world with this film in which they discussed their art. The legendary director, who will be 87 years old on the last day of this year's Accessible Film Festival, still continues to produce films and write books.