The Celebration
Thomas Vinterberg · 1998
Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 debut, the first Dogme 95 film, follows a Danish family’s birthday gathering where a son publicly accuses his father of childhood sexual abuse. Shot on Mini-DV with no artificial lighting or post-sync sound, it uses radical formal restraint to focus on performance, gesture and the banality of complicity. The film won the Cannes Jury Prize and numerous Nordic and European awards.