The Celebration (Danish: 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.
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.
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Plot
Helge, a respected businessman and family patriarch, is celebrating his 60th birthday at the family-run hotel. Gathered together amongst a large party of family and friends are his wife Else, his sullen eldest son Christian, his rude and arrogant younger son Michael, and his well-traveled daughter Helene. Another sibling, Linda, has recently taken her life at the hotel. Helene finds Linda's suicide note, but hides it in a medicine bottle after becoming upset by the undisclosed contents. Michael fights with his wife, whom he had earlier abandoned on the roadside with their three children, and then has sex with her. He later beats Michelle, a waitress at the hotel, after she pulls him aside to tell him that she is pregnant as a result of their affair and insults his family.
