Welcome to dextri.com on July 9 2009.
This is an internet experiment running to monitor browsing habbits of individuals through wikipedia contents.

The Celebration

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the film. For other uses, see The Celebration (disambiguation).
The Celebration (Festen)

The Celebration DVD cover
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)

The Celebration is a 1998 Danish film whose plot was inspired by a hoax which was broadcast on a Danish radio station. Hearing it inspired director Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov to write the script.[1] 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. Christians twin sister, Linda, had recently killed herself at the hotel.

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] Based on a hoax from a radioshow

A young man, "Allan", from southern Jutland, made up a story about his twin sister, their father owning a hotel, and he himself having been subjected to sexual abuse by his father, and told it on air in a radioshow with the host Keld Koplev, who believed it, and thought it made good radio. Søren Vinterberg heard it, and approached the script-writer Mogens Rukov, and together they constructed the plot of the film.[2] Thomas Vinterberg has subsequently stated during an interview that some years after making the film he was approached by the friend of a female psychiatric nurse who had treated 'Allan'. She told the director that her friend had confronted her father about his sexual abuse at a family gathering and had told 'Allan' about the incident at a later date. When Vinterberg asked to meet the nurse her friend said that she wished to remain anonymous. If this latest story is true it would mean that the film which, for legal reasons, never actually claimed to be based on a true story was in fact, in a roundabout way, based on a real incident.

[edit] Stage adaptations

Main article: Festen (play)

The Celebration has frequently been adapted for the stage; as of 2008 there have been English, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, German, Afrikaans, Greek, Finnish, 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.

The Company Theatre [1] is mounting the Canadian premiere of FESTEN in November 2008 at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto. This production is directed by Jason Byrne and stars Eric Peterson, Rosemary Dunsmore, Nicholas Campbell, Philip Riccio, Allan Hawco, Tara Rosling, Caroline Cave, Richard Clarkin, Earl Pastko, Milton Barnes, Gray Powell & Alex Paxton-Beesley.

[edit] Awards

The Celebration won the following awards:

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Der var engang en fest - af Claus Christensen, Filmagasinet Ekko, 18. maj 2003 {Danish language|Danish}
  2. ^ Der var engang en fest - af Claus Christensen, Filmagasinet Ekko, 18. maj 2003 {Danish language|Danish}

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Cinema of Denmark
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celebration"
Personal tools
Visit joltnews for the latest headlines
Visit bloit.com for company information
Geed Media does computer consulting on long island.
This page viewed times. See Logs