11/10/2012 - Oscar-nominated for Pulp Fiction, US actress Uma Thurman teams up with Danish director Lars von Trier, currently shooting in Cologne, Germany

US actress Uma Thurman, who rose to fame as Mia Wallace in US director Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994), for which she was later Oscar nominated, has teamed up with Danish director Lars von Trier, who has started principal photography for his new feature Nymphomaniac in Cologne, Germany.

Thurman, who continued her collaboration with Tarantino in Kill Bill (2003-2004) and most recently starred in Bel Ami [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2012), will join the international lead actors, French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, with Stacy Martin, Shia Labeouf, Connie Nielsen, Jamie Bell, Mia Goth and Jens Albinus.

The "wild and poetic story of a woman's erotic journey from birth to the age of 50 as told by the self-diagnosed nymphomaniac, Joe (Gainsbourg), to an elderly charming bachelor, Seligman (Skarsgård)" is produced by Louise Vesth for Zentropa Entertainments, with Bettina Brokemper for Zentropa International Koln, Marianne Slot for France's Slot Machine and Bert Hamelinck for the Netherlands' Caviar Films.

Nymphomaniac will be released in two versions – one with hardcore sex scenes, the other a softer edition suitable for television, as "most of the finance for the film comes from television", explained head of Zentropa Entertainments Peter Aalbæk Jensen, who has also confirmed that the explicit sex scenes in the film will be simulated, body-doubled or aided by visual effects.

"As a culture radical, I can hardly explore a woman's sexual development without a graphic depiction of intercourse - an actual penetration," declared von Trier. Denmark's TrustNordisk has already sold the film to the UK, Benelux, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic and ex-Yugoslavia.