Thomas Vinterberg first came to international attention with his sadistic black comedy, Festen, giving people their first taste of Dogme. His glossier English-language follow up, It's All About Love, features an international cast, gorgeous cinematography, and a surreal, dream-like atmosphere that seems either to draw audiences in or leave them cold.

Did you set out to make an anti-Dogme movie?

Yes, I wanted to make the ultimate contradiction of a Dogme movie. I wanted to go all the way to the other end of the curve and explore that area instead. That's why I set it in the future, because Dogme claims it has to be here and now. But also it liberated us, giving us the option to create weightless Ugandans and snow in July. It's important to say that what this film is trying to touch upon is, how do we live now? At the end of the day, the future in film always helps people to describe today, doesn't it?

What does it tell us about our 21st century lives?

I was in an airplane after Festen, flying round to festivals in different parts of the world, celebrating myself, and I was struck with this mix between feeling very important and feeling lonely, sad and empty. I suddenly realised that a lot of people live like that now. So this film claims that you die from that. You literally drop dead in the street. But, of course, there's a lot of living-dead people around us in real life, right?

You talk in the press notes about the film and September 11...

I'm very cautious about mentioning that tragedy because I don't want it to be a commercial hook. But what I can say is that it was a strange experience for me to make this film. Because when we wrote it, three years ago, we decided to include all sorts of cosmic disturbances, and from that day, this world has been out of balance. Ice falls in the Sahara, aeroplanes fly into houses in New York and shake the world; there's floods in central Europe, there's snow in Greece in the summer. So it was strange suddenly realising that all these things came true.

What reactions have you had to the film?

This film leaves people in two different categories. Either they're clueless, or they're touched to a degree where they keep dreaming about it. Then, even further up, some people claim it's a masterpiece and stop me in the street, crying. You know, "You changed my life!" That happened in Sundance. So it really divides people and I understand why: it's not the kind of story that escorts you from A to B on a normal emotional journey. It raises questions that it doesn't answer, and it's a strange, seeking, film. It's as if the story's not told yet and you have to finish it yourself in your mind.