Definitely, the Lars word

After Danish director Susanne Bier responded in this column last week to insults sent her way by Lars von Trier, another female Danish director weighs into the debate. Lone Scherfig, in town to promote her adaptation of hit novel One Day, was, like Bier, a signee of Von Trier's Dogme '95 movement and a protege of Von Trier's studio Zentropa. What does she feel about the antisemitic comments that got him banned from Cannes and caused a rift in the Danish industry? "Oh it's so difficult to know what to say about Lars," she told me. "I went to school with him, and now my children go to school with his children. And of course, Susanne and I were the two women in the Dogme group, so that makes a special bond. She lives practically next door to me. I have been so confused by what happened that I honestly haven't been able to talk to either Lars or Susanne since. I wouldn't know what to say. Lars has been pushing us all, provoking us all, for so many years, and without doubt it has made us the film-makers we are now. So I'm hoping we can all move on and see the next film from him and that can do the talking."

All about my grammar

Highly respected Financial Times film critic Nigel Andrews is among a number of eminent critics whose quotes adorn the giant poster for Pedro Almodóvar's new film The Skin I Live In currently splashed all over London's tube stations and around the country. Nigel's quote, however, contains a schoolboy howler. "IN A CLASS OF IT'S OWN" reads the capped-up text, complete with unnecessary flying apostrophe and Nigel's name underneath. Fastidious Nigel is reeling from the embarrassment. Honestly, some people in film marketing departments must have a Bad Education.

The write stuff

Screenwriters are hitting back as the true auteurs. Writer Jeremy Brock, who penned the scripts for Mrs Brown, The Last King of Scotland and The Eagle has organised a season of screenwriter talks next month, at Bafta and BFI Southbank, to redress an imbalance. "The idea is to celebrate screenwriters as collaborative authors of films, rather than simply as adjuncts of the director's vision," he says. "I am passionately against the possessory credit now taken by almost all directors — "a film by" — except in the case of directors who also write their own screenplays. Even then, I think it demeans all those whose vision and talent goes into making a movie." Brock has persuaded writers with diverse approaches, including Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe), Guillermo Ariaga (21 Grams, Babel) and Ken Loach's regular writer Paul Laverty (The Wind That Shakes the Barley) to reveal the secrets and perils of their art. Perhaps the jewel is a chance to peer into the mind of Charlie Kaufman, who wrote Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the truly bizarre Synecdoche, New York. A shy public speaker, Kaufman's take on lecturing should be fascinating. Directors, though, should maybe stay away. For more info, go to bafta.org/screenwriters