Thomas Vinterberg (Danish: [ˈtsʰʌmæsˈve̝nˀtɐˌpɛɐ̯ˀ] ; born 19 May 1969) is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production. He is best known for the films The Celebration (1998), Submarino (2010), The Hunt (2012), Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), and Another Round (2020). For Another Round he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, the first Danish filmmaker nominated in the Best Director category. [1]
Vinterberg was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark. In 1993, he graduated from the National Film School of Denmark with Last Round (Sidste omgang), [2] which won the jury and producers' awards at the Internationales Festival der Filmhochschulen München, and First Prize at Tel Aviv. [3]
In 1993 Vinterberg made his first TV drama for DR TV and his short fiction film The Boy Who Walked Backwards , [4] produced by Birgitte Hald at Nimbus Film. [5] The film won awards at the 1994 Nordisk Panorama Film Festival, the International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, and the Toronto International Film Festival. [5] His first feature film was The Biggest Heroes (De Største Helte), a road movie that received acclaim in his native Denmark. In 1995, Vinterberg formed the Dogme 95 movement with Lars von Trier, Kristian Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen.
Following that dogma in 1998, he conceived, wrote and directed (and also had a small acting role in) the first of the Dogme movies, The Celebration (Festen). As per the rules of the Dogme manifesto, he did not take a directorial credit. However, he and the film won numerous nominations and awards, including the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. [6] At the turn of the century, Vinterberg participated in the experimental broadcast D-dag, where he and three other filmmakers directed broadcasts on four different channels, with the viewer able to switch between them and create their own viewing experience. A final edit was released in 2001. [7]
In 2003, he directed the apocalyptic science fiction romance-drama It's All About Love , a film he wrote, directed and produced himself over a period of five years. The film was entirely in English and featured, among others, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes, and Sean Penn. The movie did not do well, as critics and audiences found it idiosyncratic and somewhat incomprehensible. His next film, the English-language Dear Wendy (2005), scripted by Lars von Trier, had poor ticket sales in his native Denmark where it sold only 14,521 tickets. [8] However he won the Silver George for Best Director at the 27th Moscow International Film Festival. [9] Vinterberg then tried to retrace his roots with a smaller Danish-language production, En mand kommer hjem (2007), which also had poor ticket sales in his native Denmark, selling only 31,232 tickets. [10]
On 1 August 2008, he directed the music video for "The Day That Never Comes", the first single off Metallica's album Death Magnetic . His 2010 film Submarino was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. [11] In 2012, his film The Hunt competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival [12] [13] and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards.
In 2015, he directed Far from the Madding Crowd , an adaptation of the acclaimed Thomas Hardy novel, starring Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen and Tom Sturridge. Vinterberg reunited with Matthias Schoenaerts [14] [15] in Kursk , [16] a film about the Kursk submarine disaster that happened in 2000.
In 2019, Vinterberg lost his daughter Ida in a car accident while she was traveling home from Belgium with her mother. As such, he dedicated Another Round (Druk) to her, while filming much of the film in her school with her classmates. [17] Vinterberg was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for the film, which also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film; he dedicated the latter award to Ida. [18]
In 2024 Vinterberg's first foray into directing for TV was broadcast in Denmark. The seven-episode series called Families like Ours explores a near-future Denmark when the country is gradually evacuated due to rising sea levels. [19]
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | Sneblind | Yes | No | Executive |
1991 | Brudevalsen | Yes | Yes | No |
1993 | Sidste omgang | Yes | Yes | No |
Slaget på tasken | Yes | Yes | No | |
1994 | Drengen der gik baglæns | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1996 | The Biggest Heroes | Yes | Yes | written with Bo Hr. Hansen |
1998 | The Celebration | Yes | Yes | uncredited as director, written with Mogens Rukov |
2003 | It's All About Love | Yes | Yes | written with Mogens Rukov |
2005 | Dear Wendy | Yes | No | |
2007 | A Man Comes Home | Yes | Yes | written with Mogens Rukov |
2010 | Submarino | Yes | Yes | written with Tobias Lindholm |
2012 | The Hunt | Yes | Yes | also producer, written with Tobias Lindholm |
2015 | Far from the Madding Crowd | Yes | No | based on the book of the same name |
2016 | The Commune | Yes | Yes | written with Tobias Lindholm |
2018 | Kursk | Yes | No | based on the book A Time to Die |
2020 | Another Round | Yes | Yes | written with Tobias Lindholm |
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
2001 | D-Day | Yes | No | Experimental film, in collaboration with Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring, and Lars von Trier |
2024 | Families like Ours | Yes | Yes | Miniseries |
In April 2016, the French government appointed Vinterberg a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. [20] For his film Another Round he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language. [21] [22]
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter.
The Idiots is a 1998 Danish black comedy drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It is his first film made in compliance with the Dogme 95 Manifesto, and is also known as Dogme #2. It is the second film in von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy, preceded by Breaking the Waves (1996) and succeeded by Dancer in the Dark (2000). It is among the first films to be shot entirely with digital cameras.
Søren Kragh-Jacobsen is a Danish film director, musician, and songwriter.
Mifune is a 1999 romantic comedy film, starring Iben Hjejle and Anders W. Berthelsen. Directed by Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, it was the third film made according to the Dogme 95 group rules. The film was a great success in Denmark and an international blockbuster, ranked among the ten best-selling Danish films worldwide. It was produced by Nimbus Film.
Kristian Levring is a Danish film director. He was the fourth signatory of the Dogme95 movement. His feature films as director include Et skud fra hjertet, The King is Alive, The Intended, Fear Me Not, and The Salvation.
The Celebration is a 1998 Danish black comedy-drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and produced by Nimbus Film. It tells the story of a family gathering to celebrate their patriarch's 60th birthday, during which a family secret is revealed. Vinterberg's inspiration for the film, which he wrote with Mogens Rukov, was an interview broadcast by a Danish radio station, though the interview was later discovered to be a hoax.
Denmark has been producing films since 1897 and since the 1980s has maintained a steady stream of product due largely to funding by the state-supported Danish Film Institute. Historically, Danish films have been noted for their realism, religious and moral themes, sexual frankness and technical innovation.
The National Film School of Denmark is an independent institution under the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs. It was established in 1966 and is based on Holmen in the harbour of Copenhagen.
Kirstine "Paprika" Steen is a Danish actress and director best known for her performances in Dogme 95 films Festen, The Idiots, Mifune, and Open Hearts. Steen was the first Danish actress since Karin Nellemose to win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in the same year at the Robert Festival, the Danish equivalent of the Oscars.
Matthias Schoenaerts is a Belgian actor. He made his film debut at the age of 13 in Daens (1992), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He is best known for his roles as Filip in Loft (2008), Jacky Vanmarsenille in the Oscar-nominated Bullhead (2011), Ali in the BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominee Rust and Bone (2012), for which he won the César Award for Most Promising Actor, Eric Deeds in The Drop (2014), Bruno von Falk in Suite Française (2015), Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), Hans Axgil in The Danish Girl (2015) and Uncle Vanya in Red Sparrow (2018). Schoenaerts received critical acclaim for his portrayal of an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD in Disorder (2015), and for his performance as an inmate training a wild horse in The Mustang (2019).
Anthony Dod Mantle, DFF, BSC, ASC is a British cinematographer and still photographer.
Zentropa, or Zentropa Entertainments, is a Danish film company started in 1992 by director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen. Zentropa is named after the train company Zentropa in the film Europa (1991), which started the collaboration between von Trier and Jensen.
Dogme 95 was a Danish avant-garde filmmaking movement founded by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" and the "Vows of Chastity". These were rules to create films based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, while excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology. It was supposedly created as an attempt to "take back power for the directors as artists" as opposed to the movie studio.
Submarino is a 2010 Danish drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, starring Jakob Cedergren and Peter Plaugborg. It is based on the 2007 novel Submarino by Jonas T. Bengtsson, and focuses on two brothers on the bottom of Danish society, with lives marked by violence and drug addiction. The film was produced by Nimbus Film. As a condition from the financier TV 2, half of the cast and crew were novices, which the director enjoyed as it gave an experience similar to his earliest films.
The Robert Award for Best Danish Film is presented at an annual Robert Award ceremony by the Danish Film Academy
The Robert Award for Best Director is presented at an annual Robert Award show hosted by the Danish Film Academy. The category was introduced in 2001 and all directors of Danish films irrespective of the language of the film are eligible. The winner is selected among five nominees.
The Robert Award for Best Screenplay is one of the merit awards presented by the Danish Film Academy at the annual Robert Awards ceremony. The award has been handed out since 1984, but except in 1991 and 1993. On two occasions, in 2005 and in 2015, the Academy handed out two awards in the category, one for best original screenplay, and one for best adapted screenplay.
Kursk is a 2018 disaster drama-thriller film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, based on Robert Moore's book A Time to Die, about the true story of the 2000 Kursk submarine disaster. It stars Matthias Schoenaerts, Léa Seydoux, Peter Simonischek, August Diehl, Max von Sydow, and Colin Firth. It was the last film featuring von Sydow to be released before his death in March 2020.
Another Round is a 2020 black comedy-drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, from a screenplay by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. An international co-production between Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, the film stars Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, and Lars Ranthe. It follows four high school teachers who embark on an experiment to maintain a constant level of intoxication throughout the workday.
The Golden Heart trilogy is three films by the Danish screenwriter and director Lars von Trier. It consists of Breaking the Waves (1996), a melodrama about sex and religion; The Idiots (1998), a Dogme 95 film dealing with moral conventions; and Dancer in the Dark (2000), a musical starring the Icelandic singer Björk.
Thomas Vinterberg fandt på Filmskolen sammen med manuskriptforfatteren Bo Hr. Hansen (manus årgang 1991). De skrev sammen hans afgangsfilm Sidste omgang (1993) og siden kortfilmen Drengen der gik baglæns (1994) og ...
Sein Abschlußfilm "SIDSTE OMGANG" (1993) wurde sowohl auf dem Internationalen Studentenfestival in München als auch auf dem Festival in Tel Aviv prämiert und 1994 als bester Studentenfilm für ...