Lars von Trier, the director of films including Dancer in the Dark and Melancholia, has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

His production company, Zentropa, said it released the information to avoid any speculation about his health leading up to the premiere of his series The Kingdom Exodus at the Venice Film Festival next month.

The company said the 66-year-old Danish filmmaker was diagnosed at the start of the summer.

“Lars is in good spirits and is being treated for his symptoms,” producer Louise Vesth said in a statement.

“And the work to complete The Kingdom Exodus continues as planned.”

Von Trier has won several international film awards in his four decades as a filmmaker, including the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for Dancer in the dark.

His films and comments have sometimes caused controversy, and in 2011 he was banned from Cannes for seven years after he made comments sympathetic to Nazis during a press conference.

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He returned to the festival in 2018 with the serial killer drama The House That Jack Built.

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His latest show, The Kingdom Exodus, is the third and final season of a series which first premiered in 1994 in Denmark but has not been made widely available.

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