Film Memories
Anything is possible!
The time I helped a young genius


By Patricia Smollerup / Filmmagasinet Ekko
August 25, 2025

Per Holst has passed away at the age of 86. In a lifetime, he was one of Denmark's bravest producers, making over 70 films. In 2019, he told Ekko about his greatest challenge: Making Lars von Trier's mysterious debut film. 

Anything is possible!

That has been Per Holst's mantra throughout his long career. The producer who has created more than 70 films, including classics such as Pelle the Conqueror, Tree of Knowledge and Flamberede hjerter.

But the mantra was seriously challenged when Per Holst met a young man named Lars von Trier in the early 1980s.


"Per was there, dared more and still strong, as you see!" Lars von Trier previously wrote to Ekko about Per Holst, who produced his debut feature film in 1984 and posed for a photo with the director at the reception for his 80th birthday in 2019.  Photo | Anthon Unger

“Here was a person who thought completely differently, so it required a lot of people around him,” says Per Holst, who nevertheless threw himself into producing Trier’s debut film The Element of Crime / Forbrydelsens element from 1984.

In the film, policeman Fisher remembers under hypnosis how he investigated a series of mysterious child murders, and his identity slowly merged with that of the serial killer.

“It’s strange, very strange,” thought Per Holst when he read the script. He also tried to ask Trier if he couldn’t work on the plot a little more.

“I said I could imagine that there would be a little more crime and that you would understand it all more clearly,” says Per Holst.

But the answer was clear and uncompromising from Trier. It could not be changed. “Do you want to do it or don’t you want to do it?” Trier asked, and then Per Holst took the plunge.

“He was a young genius. He was very stubborn, and it is my experience that the most difficult people make the best films,” says the producer.

The filming took place, among other places, at Stevns Klint and the top of a parking garage in Copenhagen, from where the dome of the Marble Church could be seen. But in the film, Denmark is not recognizable at all. There is water everywhere and a constant darkness that evokes a doomsday atmosphere.

You couldn’t imagine anything further away from the well-meaning social realism and the pleasant folk comedies that characterized Danish films at the time.

“The film crew was in all sorts of crazy places. They were down in sewers, with shit up and down their arms, and out in stormy weather with big cranes that were used for jumping,” says Per Holst.

Most of the filming took place at night, and the scenes were bathed in a blazing yellow light.

“It was a new way of lighting. Absolutely groundbreaking. Normally, it was important that you could see what was in the picture. But here they were doing almost the opposite,” says Per Holst enthusiastically.

“When the film crew ate the food on set, it was very unappetizing because of the lighting. Everything was yellow and ugly. That’s why we had to put ordinary lamps up next to the food.”

The Element of Crime was sensationally selected for the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it even won an award. The producer believes that his creative role mostly consisted of saying “get started”.

"Lars himself says that I gave him good advice. But I can't remember when I did it. He knew exactly what he wanted. And it's been that way ever since."

"You can either be a dictator or - as I work - let things happen by themselves. And then maybe just step in and help a little. But whether they listen, I'm not sure."

But The Element of Crime was also a film that drained the producer's energy, who hasn't produced a Trier film since.

"Shut up, I was so tired of it, man. Afterwards it was nice, but it was hard work," says Per Holst.

The following year he ended up in the opposite ditch when he both directed and produced the flat folk comedy Walter and Carlo - Up on Daddys Hat / Walter og Carlo - op på fars hat (1985), which is still the fourth highest-selling Danish film in recent times.

"The film was a joke, but I swear the press came after me. I had just won a Bodil with Trier's film, and then I went out and made Walter and Carlo. The critics were really offended, but I never let that get to me," laughs Per Holst. 

And the producer still has a high star with Lars von Trier. The director writes to Ekko briefly: "Per was there, dared more and still strong, as you can see!"