The Celebration (film)

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The Celebration (Festen)
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Produced by Birgitte Hald,
Morten Kaufmann
Written by Thomas Vinterberg,
Mogens Rukov
Starring Ulrich Thomsen,
Henning Moritzen,
Thomas Bo Larsen,
Paprika Steen,
Birthe Neumann,
Trine Dyrholm
Music by Lars Bo Jensen
Editing by Valdís Óskarsdóttir
Distributed by Alfa Films (Argentina),
Arthaus Filmverleih (Germany),
Atalanta Filmes (Portugal),
Budapest Film (Hungary),
Cinemien (The Netherlands),
Cult Filmes (Brazil, VHS),
Europafilm AS (Norway),
Gativideo (Argentina),
Golem Distribución S.L. (Spain),
Les Films du Losange (France),
Maywin Media (Russia),
October Films (USA),
Prem'er Video Fil'm (Russia),
Scanbox Danmark (Denmark),
Triangelfilm (Sweden),
Versátil (Brazil, DVD)
Release date(s) May 1998
Running time 105 min.
Language Danish
Budget $1,300,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile
This article is about the film. For the play, see The Celebration (Play).

The Celebration is an acclaimed 1998 Danish film, written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg and produced by Nimbus Film. Its original Danish title is Festen, and it was released under this title in the UK. The film tells the story of a family gathering to celebrate their father's 60th birthday. At the birthday dinner, his eldest son publicly accuses him of sexually abusing and raping both him and his twin sister (who had just recently committed suicide).

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Respected family patriarch and businessman Helge (Henning Moritzen) is celebrating his 60th birthday at their family-run hotel. Gathered together are his loyal wife Elsa, his daughter Helene, his sons Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen) and Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), and other guests. Their oldest daughter, Linda, had recently killed herself in one of the rooms.

Before the celebration dinner, Helene finds Linda's suicide note, but hides it. Later, during dinner, Christian makes a speech to the family in which he accuses Helge of sexually abusing him and his late sister, Linda. Helge's family and friends initially dismiss the accusations as absurd, a joke, or a figment of Christian's imagination. At the end of the film, Christian's accusations are confirmed when the younger sister, Helene, reads Linda's suicide note which states she had begun to have dreams in which her father had begun to molest her again, which led to her suicide.

[edit] Style

The Celebration is best known for being the first Dogme 95 film (its full title in Denmark is Dogme #1 - Festen). Dogme films are governed by a manifesto that insists on specific production and narrative limitations (such as banning any post-production sound editing), in part as a protest against the expensive Hollywood-style film-making.

[edit] Stage adaptations

Main article: Festen (play)

The Celebration has frequently been adapted for the stage; as of 2007 there have been English, Danish, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Czech and Slovenian adaptations.[citation needed]
The English language adaptation, which retains the Danish title Festen, was written by David Eldridge, and premiered at the Almeida Theatre in 2004 in a production directed by Rufus Norris, before transferring to a successful West End run at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue until April 2005. It commenced a UK tour in February 2006, before transferring to Broadway. Despite its great success in London, it closed after only 49 performances on Broadway, ending on May 20, 2006. It opened in Melbourne, Australia in July 2006 starring Jason Donovan. An Irish production (under the title of 'Festen') ran in the Gate Theatre, Dublin, from September 2006 to November 2006.

In 2006, a Mexican adaptation opened, starring famous Mexican actor Diego Luna. In September 2007 a Peruvian production opened starring Paul Vega and Hernan Romero under the direction of Chela de Ferrari.

[edit] Awards

The Celebration won the following awards:

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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