The Celebration

The Celebration (Festen) 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.

Festen was the first film of the Dogme 95 movement, which was created by Vinterberg and his fellow Danish director Lars von Trier. The movement preferred simple and analog production values to allow for the highlighting of plot and performance. The film won the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and was selected as the Danish entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 71st Academy Awards, but it was not chosen as one of the final five nominees for the award.

Plot
Helge, a respected businessman and family patriarch, is celebrating his 60th birthday at the hotel he runs. The birthday party brings together a large group of friends and family, including his wife Else, and their three estranged children; their sullen eldest son Christian arrives from Paris, their boorish younger son Michael arrives with his wife Mette and their three children, and lastly, their well-traveled youngest daughter Helene arrives. The family is still reeling from the loss of Linda, Christian’s twin sister, who took her own life in one of the hotel bathrooms only recently.

Michael abandons his wife, Mette, and their children by the roadside after seeing Christian walking down the road, and gives Christian a ride to the hotel. Michael is told that he’s been removed from the guest list due to his drunken behaviour from last year, but is told he can stay as long as he maintains the party, doesn’t drink, and stays away from Michelle, a waitress. He fights with Mette about packing their luggage improperly, and later has sex with her. As the guests are given hotel rooms for their stay during the birthday party, Helene is sent to stay in Linda’s room. By following directions written on bathroom tiles, per the instructions of a game they played as children, Helene discovers Linda’s suicide note— but hides it in a medicine bottle after becoming upset at the contents.

During Helge's birthday dinner, Christian makes a toast, and offers two different cards containing speeches for Helge to pick from. Helge chooses the green card, where Christian reveals to the guests that his father had sexually abused both him and Linda as children. After an initial shocked silence, the party goes on as usual, as guests decide to move past the moment in denial. Helge pulls Christian aside, acting baffled by the accusations and questioning Christian's motivations for slandering him. Christian appears to recant his accusation, but he is spurred to further action by Kim, the hotel chef and a childhood friend, who knows about the abuse. Kim orders Pia and Michelle, two waitresses, to hide the guests' car keys, and Christian continues his toast by accusing Helge of being responsible for Linda's death because of the trauma and abuse caused. Helge again speaks with Christian alone, this time rubbing Christian's troubled personal history in his face, including his having been institutionalized, having no luck with women, and not having been contacted by Linda before she killed herself, saying she felt abandoned by him. Michael later beats Michelle after she tells him that she had become pregnant as a result of their affair the year before, and she denigrates him and his father.

Further exacerbating the tensions of the party, Helene's black American boyfriend Gbatokai shows up, causing the racist Michael to lead most of the partygoers in singing the racist Danish song "'Jeg har set en rigtig negermand’" to offend him. Else later makes an affectionate toast to her children, during which she accuses Christian of always having an overactive imagination. When she asks Christian to apologize to his father in front of everyone for his earlier statements, he instead accuses Else of knowing about the abuse, but not doing anything to stop it. Michael dismisses Christian’s claims as he and two other guests throw Christian outside, but Christian maintains that because Michael was never at home as an adolescent, he was unaware of the abuse entirely. Christian walks back in, but Michael and the guests eject him again, leading them to beat Christian and tie him to a tree in the nearby woods.

Christian manages to untie himself, and returns to the party. Pia, who shares a mutual romantic interest in Christian, finds Linda’s suicide note in Helene’s room and gives it to Christian. They then arrange for the party's toastmaster to ask Helene to read the note aloud in front of the guests. In the note, Linda states that she is overwhelmed by trauma from Helge's abuse and bids a loving farewell to her siblings—especially Christian. Helge curtly acknowledges his misdeeds, insults his children, and leaves the dining room. Christian, who has been drinking heavily, faints and has a hallucination of Linda telling him that she must go into death alone. When he awakens, he learns from Helene that Michael is missing, and Else calls her children to bring Michael back. Michael, who is also heavily drunk, smashes Helge’s bedroom window and then beats him severely, only stopping when Christian arrives and holds him back.

In the morning, the family and guests gather to have breakfast. Christian asks Pia to move with him to Paris so they can be together, which she accepts. Helge enters the dining room and admits to his wrongdoing, noting that none of the guests or his children will likely ever see him again after this, and declares his love for his children before sitting down. Michael gets up and quietly tells his father to leave, which he does alone, as Else declines to accompany him. Everyone else quickly resumes their conversations, and Christian pensively watches Helge leave.

Production
Some years after making the film, Vinterberg talked about its inspiration: a story told by a young man on a radio show hosted by Kjeld Koplev. Vinterberg was told about the interview by the friend of a psychiatric nurse, who claimed to have treated the young man. He listened to the radio programme and asked the scriptwriter Mogens Rukov to write a screenplay on the events, as if it were the young man's own story. It was later revealed that the story was completely made up by the patient receiving mental care.

The film 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 expensive Hollywood-style film-making. The movie is a low budget film and was shot on a Sony DCR-PC3 Handycam on standard Mini-DV cassettes.

Critical response
Festen received positive reviews from critics. On the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 47 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "As sharp and ruthless as the family dynamic that powers its plot, The Celebration blends tragedy and comedy to brilliant effect." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100 based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing that it "mixes farce and tragedy so completely that it challenges us to respond at all. ... Vinterberg handles his material so cannily that we must always look for clues to the intended tone."

Psychologist Richard Gartner, who specializes in counseling men who were sexually abused as children, called Festen a praiseworthy film that accurately depicts the consequences of sexual abuse, writing: "The extent of the father's transgressions is revealed bit by bit in successive revelations. We see that the son has been severely damaged by his boyhood abuse, and has been incapable of intimate relatedness throughout his life. His sister, who has committed suicide, was also deeply damaged. The father denies the incest through most of the movie, and this denial is conveyed and reinforced in the reactions of those who hear the accusations. The partygoers are momentarily shocked by each disclosure, but then continue to celebrate the birthday in a nearly surrealistic manner that serves as a dramatic enactment of the chronic denial often seen in incestuous families."

Accolades
Festen won the following awards:
 * Amanda Awards, Norway (1998): Best Nordic Feature Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics (2000): Grand Prix
 * Bodil Awards (1999):
 * Best Actor – Ulrich Thomsen
 * Best Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Canberra International Film Festival (1999): Audience Award – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Cannes Film Festival (1998): Jury Prize – Thomas Vinterberg (tied with Class Trip)
 * European Film Awards (1998): European Discovery of the Year – Thomas Vinterberg (tied with The Dreamlife of Angels)
 * Gijón International Film Festival (1998): Best Director – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Guldbagge Awards (1999): Best Foreign Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Independent Spirit Awards (1999): Best Foreign Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (1998): Best Foreign Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Lübeck Nordic Film Days (1998):
 * Audience Prize of the "Lübecker Nachrichten" – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Baltic Film Prize for a Nordic Feature Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Prize of the Ecumenical Jury – Thomas Vinterberg
 * New York Film Critics Circle Awards (1998): Best Foreign Language Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Norwegian International Film Festival (1999): Best Foreign Film of the Year – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Robert Awards (1999):
 * Best Actor – Ulrich Thomsen
 * Best Cinematography – Anthony Dod Mantle
 * Best Editing – Valdís Óskarsdóttir
 * Best Film – Thomas Vinterberg
 * Best Screenplay – Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov
 * Best Supporting Actor – Thomas Bo Larsen
 * Best Supporting Actress – Birthe Neumann
 * Rotterdam International Film Festival (1999): Audience Award – Thomas Vinterberg
 * São Paulo International Film Festival (1998): Honorable Mention – Thomas Vinterberg

Stage adaptations
The film has frequently been adapted for the stage.

An English-language stage adaptation of Festen written by David Eldridge 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, London until April 2005. It commenced a UK tour in February 2006, before transferring to Broadway. Despite its great success in London, the play closed after only 49 performances on Broadway, ending its run on 20 May 2006. An Australian production starring Jason Donovan opened in Melbourne in July 2006, and an Irish production ran in the Gate Theatre, Dublin, from September to November 2006.

In 2006, a Mexican adaptation opened starring 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 mounted the Canadian premiere of Festen in November 2008 at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto. This production was directed by Jason Byrne and starred Eric Peterson, Rosemary Dunsmore, Nicholas Campbell, Philip Riccio, Allan Hawco, Tara Rosling, Caroline Cave, Richard Clarkin, Earl Pastko, Milton Barnes, Gray Powell, and Alex Paxton-Beesley.

The Shadwell Dramatic Society's production of Festen opened at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge on 6 March 2012.

In July 2018, Play Dead Theatre's production of Festen opened at the Rippon Lea Estate in Melbourne. It was directed by Jennifer Sarah Dean and starred Adrian Mulvany.