Thomas Vinterberg

Cannes winner Mads Mikkelsen plays a kindergarten teacher accused of something he didn’t do. Thomas Vinterberg drew on case files that a child psychiatrist brought him after “Festen”, and once the witch hunt starts, the truth stops mattering. — In a small Danish town where everyone knows everyone, Lucas is divorced, works at the local kindergarten and hopes his teenage son Marcus will soon come to live with him. His best friend’s little daughter adores him, and when he gently tells her off for kissing him on the lips, she angrily says something to the head of the kindergarten that the adults take as an accusation. The head believes her, and so does the rest of the town. — Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2014 Best Actor (Mads Mikkelsen) | Cannes Film Festival | 2012 Prize of the Ecumenical Jury | Cannes Film Festival | 2012

Thomas Vinterberg, who co-wrote the Dogme 95 manifesto, grew up in a commune himself, and here he turns his eye on people who choose to live outside the rules everyone else follows. Trine Dyrholm won an award in Berlin for her superb performance. Would you let them into your home? — In 1970s Copenhagen, architecture lecturer Erik inherits his parents’ enormous house, and his wife Anna, a TV newsreader, suggests they fill it with friends instead of selling it. There are dinners, parties and a shared kitty, all watched by their teenage daughter, and for a while friendship, love and solidarity sit happily under one roof. Then Erik’s affair with a student puts the whole communal experiment to the test. — Official Selection | Berlin International Film Festival | 2016 Best Actress (Trine Dyrholm) | Berlin International Film Festival | 2016 Best Adapted Screenplay | Danish Film Awards | 2017

Mads Mikkelsen plays a history teacher who stopped speaking up long ago, both in class and at home, and decides to fix that with drink, on the theory that we’re all born with too little alcohol in our blood. Thomas Vinterberg takes an absurd premise and makes it a story about getting yourself back. — Martin teaches history in Copenhagen to a class that stopped listening to him long ago, and things aren’t much better at home. At a colleague’s fortieth birthday, he and three other teachers hear about a theory that people are born with an alcohol deficit, and that a steady level of 0.05 per cent brings courage and ease. They decide to test it during school hours, and for a few weeks it works. — Best International Feature Film | Oscars | 2021 Nominated for Best Director | Oscars | 2021 Silver Seashell | San Sebastián International Film Festival | 2020 Nominated for Best Non-English Language Film | Golden Globes | 2021 Best European Actor (Mads Mikkelsen) | European Film Awards | 2020 Best European Screenwriter | European Film Awards | 2020 Best European Film | European Film Awards | 2020 Best European Director | European Film Awards | 2020