Latest news with #Vinterberg
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Netflix Takes Thomas Vinterberg's Debut Series ‘Families Like Ours' For The U.S.
EXCLUSIVE: Having premiered at Venice in 2024, Thomas Vinterberg's drama Families Like Ours has been picked up by Netflix for the U.S. and will launch on the streamer on June 10. Families Like Ours is the first series from Vinterberg, the Oscar-winning Another Round filmmaker and co-founder of the Dogma 95 movement. The drama has already sold to the BBC in the UK and a raft of international buyers. Studiocanal is handling distribution and sealed the Netflix sale. More from Deadline Lady Gaga Closes Out Netflix's Tudum With Mesmerizing On-Theme 'Wednesday' Performance Featuring Viral Dance Lady Gaga's Cameo In 'Wednesday' Confirmed As Netflix Premieres Season 2 Footage 'Stranger Things': Netflix Reveals Premiere Date For Season 5, Split Into Three Volumes Zentropa developed Families Like Ours with Studiocanal and it is an original series for TV2 Denmark and Canal+ in France. Set in a not-too-distant future, it follows events after rising water levels force Denmark to be evacuated. Those who can afford it travel to affluent countries. The less well-off, meanwhile, depend on government-funded relocation to more challenging destinations, casting a new spin on a refugee story. Against this backdrop we meet Laura (Amaryllis August), a student on the cusp of graduation. When news of the evacuation breaks, she faces the impossible dilemma of choosing between the people she loves the most. 'Countries disappear, love remains,' reads a description of the series. 'It's wonderful how an inherently Danish series like Families Like Ours, through a platform like Netflix, can travel far and wide and strike a chord with audiences around the world,' Vinterberg said. He added: 'In this increasingly divided world, it gives me both joy and hope to see that there's a universal language — a common ground rooted in shared human experiences. Hopefully, that sense of connection continues across the Atlantic.' The show was produced by Zentropa for TV2 in Denmark. The series had a solid festival run; after debuting at Venice in 2024, it played at Toronto and the London Film Festival. The show has already bowed on TV2 in Denmark. Vinterberg and wrote the seven-part series with Bo Hr. Hansen. It was shot in Denmark, Sweden, France, Romania, and the Czech Republic. There are a raft of co-production partners including NRK, TV4, ARD Degeto, Film i Väst, Sirena Film, Zentropa Sweden, Saga Film and Ginger Pictures. Another Round producers Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Kasper Dissing produced. Families Like Ours also reunites Vinterberg and Zentropa with Studiocanal, which distributed Another Round in the UK. The Netflix deal follows sales to numerous broadcasters and platforms including Movistar Plus+ (Spain), CBC Gem (Canada) and SBS (Australia). 'With the support of CANAL+ and all of our partners we have taken great pride in bringing Vinterberg's deeply human and universal story of love and hope to such a wide audience,' said Chloé Marquet, Studiocanal's Head Of International Sales for Films & TV Series. 'Netflix is now the perfect place for the series to thrive and resonate far beyond borders.' Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More
Euronews
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
What is Dogma 25 - the new cinematic movement unveiled in Cannes?
30 years after the original cinematic movement, a group of Danish and Swedish filmmakers have relaunched the avant garde Dogma 95, with a new manifesto that has been updated for the internet age. 'In a world where film is based on algorithms and artificial visual expressions are gaining traction, it's our mission to stand up for the flawed, distinct and human imprint,' said May el-Toukhy, Milad Alami, Annika Berg and Isabella Eklöf and Jesper Just in a statement read at the Cannes Film Festival. 'We champion the uncompromising and unpredictable, and we fight against the forces working to reduce cinematic art to an ultra-processed consumer product.' Described in its manifesto as 'a rescue mission and a cultural uprising', Dogma 25 has been endorsed by the two best-known directors to emerge from the original Dogma movement: Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier – as well as von Trier's production company Zentropa. Both filmmakers said in a statement: 'In '95, we made films in the certainty of peace. And created a revolt against conformity. In '25, new dogmas are created, now in a world of war and uncertainty. We wish you the best of luck on your march toward reconquering Danish film.' For those who need a refresher, Dogma 95 was a manifesto unveiled by von Trier and Vinterberg, which highlighted a set of rules aimed at creating films based on the traditional values of story, acting and theme, while excluding the use of special effects. Both filmmakers wanted to establish a new extreme, saying: 'In a business of extremely high budgets, we figured we should balance the dynamic as much as possible." The manifesto, which mimicked Truffaut's "Une certaine tendance du cinema" – the Cahiers du Cinéma article which kickstarted the French New Wave in 1954 - compiled a 'Vow of Chastity'. These were the terms that would determine whether or not a film could be considered part of the Dogma 95 movement. The 10 rules were: Dogma 95 would develop into a collection of 35 films, but the best known are 1998's Festen and The Idiots – two hugely influential films for contemporary European cinema. In 2002, it was generally accepted that Dogma 95 had ended, especially following the statement made by Vinterberg: 'It was always meant to be a wave, and they don't go on forever." The Dogma 25 manifesto contains 10 new dogmas. The filmmakers said they have taken a 'new vow of chastity' to uphold the rules, which they explained are influenced by three central themes: a return to the physical reality, aesthetic restrain, and economic and geographic accountability. The new manifesto only retains one of the original's self-imposed rules (read on to see which one) and most challenging of the new rules is that Dogma 25 films must be made 'in no more than a year', and the use of the internet 'is off limits in all creative processes'. Here is the full new manifesto: DOGMA 25 is a collective of filmmakers founded in Copenhagen in the spring of 2025. Our stated purpose is to preserve the originality of cinema and the opportunity to create film on its own terms. The role of the director has increasingly been reduced to that of project manager, the film to a commodity, and the audience to consumers. Experimental practice is stifled by fear of risk-taking, which suffocates artistic exploration and silences unique voices. When films are merely executed and not allowed to evolve organically, it puts the art form in danger of becoming functional, obedient and thereby irrelevant. In a world where formulaic films based on algorithms and artificial visual expression are gaining traction, it's our mission to stand up for the flawed, distinct, and human imprint. We champion the uncompromising and unpredictable and we fight the forces working to reduce cinematic art to an ultra-processed consumer good. By scaling down production, we ensure that everyone on the team has an intimate relationship with the film and its message. This will enhance mutual trust and a sense of collective responsibility for the film and for each other. It also allows us to safeguard the flexibility that is vital in making a creative process dynamic and intuitive, rather than purely executive. We celebrate DOGMA 95, all the filmmakers who came before us, and those who will come after. We stand together to defend artistic freedom as a shield against pointlessness and powerlessness. DOGMA 25 is a rescue mission and a cultural uprising. To protect and preserve what we hold dear, we hereby submit to the unflinching and unbreakable set of rules called: THE VOW OF CHASTITY. THE VOW OF CHASTITY: I vow to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGMA 25: 1. The script must be original and handwritten by the director. We compel ourselves to write the script by hand in order to nurture the kind of intuition that flows most freely from the dream, channelled through the hand onto the paper. 2. At least half the film must be without dialogue. We insist on a cinematic approach to filmmaking, because we believe in visual storytelling and have faith in the audience. 3. The internet is off limits in all creative processes. We commit to produce the films relying on real people within our physical reality – rather than in a digital one infused with algorithms. 4. We'll only accept funding with no content altering conditions attached. We assume responsibility for keeping budgets down so the team retains final say in all artistic decisions. 5. No more than 10 people behind the camera. We commit to working in close collaborations to build trust and strengthen our shared vision. 6. The film must be shot where the narrative takes place. Film as an art form becomes artificial and generic when we portray a location in a false light. 7. We're not allowed to use make-up or manipulate faces and bodies unless it's part of the narrative. Just as we strive to maintain the authenticity of the location, we also want to portray the human body without a filter. We celebrate it – warts and all. 8. Everything relating to the film's production must be rented, borrowed, found, or used. We commit to making films using objects that already exist and renounce the ahistorical and self-destructive culture of consumerism. 9. The film must be made in no more than one year. We abstain from any lengthy processes that stand in the way of creative flow. 10. Create the film as if it were your last. The new initiative has been met with excitement, with Tine Fischer, the Director of The Danish Film Institute, saying: 'Any system, even one that runs impeccably, needs examining. Needs challenging. Needs to cast a courageous look on itself. Throughout the last decades, Danish film has distinguished itself internationally with myriads of Academy and Cannes nominations and a unique position in our own market. We are known globally as a strong nation for film, and Danes here at home love Danish film. But no success has a lifetime guarantee.' She continued: '30 years ago, DOGMA 95 turned the eyes of the world toward Denmark and left a radical imprint on our national self image as a filmmaking nation. The people were few, the number of films limited, but the impact was huge. We need these brave artistic visions now more than ever. Visions befitting a new time – which is exactly what the new DOGMA 25 represents: A strong group of noticeably different filmmakers, who have collectively committed to artistic radicalism. How do we make films, how do we ensure our freedom of expression in a distinctly challenged geopolitical world, and how do we safeguard the singularity of art.' She added: 'As a film institute, we are facing a time where our cultural contributions are tasked with ensuring state of the art Danish films – now and in the future. It's not a simple task, but deep inside the task lies the ability, as a system, to make space for film as a free art form, for innovation and perspectives. This is why we are especially happy and proud to support DOGMA 25 in their early stage, both with concept development and the international launch in Cannes.'
Telegraph
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Families Like Ours, review: this tale of a flooded Denmark will drag you into its slipstream
If you live in one of the ever-rising number of households designated as a flood risk then it might be handy to have a life jacket to hand when watching Families Like Ours (BBC Four). Because in this (let's hope not too) prescient drama, a whole country is going under. Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, who launched Mads Mikkelsen into the drink at the climax of his modern classic movie Another Round, is diving into deep water again here: he's asking us to ponder what would happen if a whole country has to be abandoned due to rising water levels. In Families Like Ours, Denmark is literally sunk. It's an ingenious, if chilling, set-up. As the news of the Danish Government's decision to abandon ship and launch a repatriation programme for its six million citizens seeps out, panic understandably sets in. The border floodgates open and we meet a handful of characters struggling to keep heads above water as the world turns its back on them: Denmark, pretty quickly, finds out who its friends are. But it's individual stories, not the bigger picture, that Vinterberg – who writes as well as directs – turns his focus on. The political issues thrown up by a country abandoning itself and creating its own diaspora are given short shrift in favour of examining the personal impact of what forging a new tribe of refugees entails. The heart of the story is 18-year-old Laura (Amaryllis April August), whose one key mystifying decision to derail her own future in order to support her struggling mother sends ripples across Europe as she lands everyone – from her dad and his new family, to her recently met love-of-her-life – into a tailspin. Now I'm not one to try and control the characters in TV dramas (until we get truly interactive, let's face it: it's a thankless task) but it takes a whole suspension bridge of disbelief to go with the flow of the wildly illogical choices each and every character makes here as their lives are summarily upended. Laura's not the only one with her finger on the self-destruct button. Henrik (Magnus Millang) is another character who will have you shouting at the screen in bafflement as he repeatedly sets about detonating his marriage to husband, government official Nikolaj (Esben Smed), thanks to his outsized victim mentality. But shouting at the screen means that, for all their inexplicable actions, these characters have a way of getting under your skin. Put yourself in their place: what would you do if you found yourself washed up on the margins of a world where any potential lifelines come swathed in choking red tape? It's a tough question because no one comes out too well in Vinterberg's scenario. The undercurrent coursing through Families Like Ours is a sour take on humanity, a recourse to base survival instincts only occasionally sweetened by random acts of kindness. Fascinating and infuriating in equal measure and ultimately oddly moving, for all its flaws, Families Like Ours pulls you into its emotional slipstream and won't let go.
The Guardian
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Families Like Ours review – why is this dull drama such a hit in Denmark?
Families Like Ours is a drama – directed and co-written by the Oscar-winning Danish director Thomas Vinterberg – that asks the question: what would you do if your luck ran out? The kind that maybe saw you born with a healthy body, or into a privileged, developed country, or with a skin colour that didn't invite discrimination among others. Maybe even all of the above. What if life as you knew it – stable, easy, dependable, cushioned – was turned upside down? What then? The seven-part series is set in Denmark in a near future in which the Dutch economy has recently crashed, flooding the Netherlands' nearby countries with job-seeking immigrants, eating up capacity and goodwill. Thus there is little of either available when the government announces that the threat posed to low-lying Denmark by global heating and rising sea levels means it must now be evacuated of its six million inhabitants entirely. The country is, in effect, being shut down. So Vinterberg takes what most of us treat as an existential threat, a problem too huge and frightening to think about, and puts it into a more manageable frame. Rendering it smaller and more potent still, we follow a handful of characters through the decisions they are forced to make as the massive displacement begins. Some have advance notice of the government's announcement and use it – illegally, but who wouldn't, is the first question we are made to ask ourselves – to liquidise assets before the market crashes and withdraw savings in cash before restrictions are brought in. Among them is Nikolaj (Esben Smed), a government employee, who tells his husband, Henrik, (Magnus Millang), and his sister Amalie (Helene Reingaard Neumann). Henrik's volatile, homophobic brother Peter (David Dencik) is tipped off too and it is from him that come most of the violent incidents that Vinterberg's naturalistic approach otherwise eschews. Sometimes, you wonder if it eschews them too much. There are reports of social unrest but there is so little on screen that you do wonder if the drama could not afford to ratchet up the tension a bit more. There is so much talk about the necessary documents to be found, visas to be applied for, permits to be amassed and so many scenes set across desks from cold-hearted bureaucrats that you could get to the end of the first few episodes feeling that you have a better idea of how to organise a nationwide exodus than of how it would really feel to be caught up in one. The other characters we follow include Amalie's husband, Jacob (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), an architect who manages to use his connections to get his family a coveted pathway to France. But his daughter Laura (Amaryllis August), from his first marriage, is torn between going with him (to take up her place at the Sorbonne or going with her less wealthy and connected mother, Fanny (Paprika Steen), to her state-organised placement in Romania (it is possible Vinterberg has chosen to make some of his soon-to-be-refugees a little too privileged). There is also new boyfriend, Elias (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt), to throw into the mix and provide a 'will first love be torn asunder' subplot that is given too much time for what it adds to the show. More affecting is the decision made by Christel (Asta Kamma August), mother of nine-year-old footballing talent Lucas who has been offered a place by football scouts in England but would have to go without her. As borders close and travel by resettled Danes will become impossible, she would essentially be saying goodbye to him for ever. Families Like Ours has been a hit with viewers and critics since its inaugural showing at the Venice film festival last year. And there is much to admire. It doesn't preach, it does have the themes work through the characters instead of the other way round (and has a cast stuffed with Danish heavyweights to help it). But it all feels a bit thin, a bit bloodless – like a thought experiment made flesh rather than a compelling, provocative drama. The script is uninspiring and the relentlessness of the bad decisions made by characters, as if to be privileged is not just to be unreflective but actively stupid, too, lends a slight air of flagellation to proceedings. One to admire, perhaps, but not to love – and therefore one whose message can, if you try, be resisted. Families Like Ours aired on BBC Four and is on iPlayer now.
New York Times
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In ‘Festen,' a Nightmare Birthday Becomes an Opera
Mark-Anthony Turnage has a habit of provoking stuffy opera fans. The revered British composer's 1988 debut, 'Greek,' appalled some audiences by transposing Sophocles's 'Oedipus Rex' into to a cursing, brawling working-class London family. And some critics hated the pole dancers onstage in 'Anna Nicole,' his opera about the tragic life of the Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith. Now, Turnage is preparing to present 'Festen,' in which a patriarch's 60th birthday party descends into chaos after a speech exposes a family's deepest secrets. When 'Festen' premieres on Tuesday at the Royal Ballet and Opera in London, the show's dark subject matter looks set to upset traditionalists, too. Based on Thomas Vinterberg's cult Danish-language movie of the same name, 'Festen' includes descriptions of child abuse and suicide. The opera's 35-strong cast will fight, engage in simulated sex and hurl racist abuse at the show's only Black character. Yet Turnage insisted in a recent interview that he hadn't set out to challenge anyone — except himself. 'Part of me thinks, 'Why don't I just do a nice fluffy story that will be performed a lot?'' Turnage said. 'But I know if I did, it wouldn't be any good.' 'I need to be provoked,' Turnage added. 'I need an extreme or strong subject to write good music.' This 'Festen' premiere comes just over 25 years after Vinterberg's movie won the jury prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. Released as 'The Celebration' in the United States, 'Festen' was created under the banner of the Dogme95 movement, which required movie directors to follow 10 strict rules. Those included only using hand-held cameras and a ban on music, unless it occurs naturally in a scene. Vinterberg said by phone that he was curious to see how the operatic adaptation would work, given that his movie was mainly about characters concealing their emotions. In opera, by contrast, 'You've got to sing out everything — there's no hiding,' Vinterberg said. Turnage said he came to 'Festen' by accident. He first watched the movie in the mid-2000s, and loved its dark humor, he said, but its operatic potential didn't occur to him straight away. Then, during a binge-watch of Vinterberg films in 2019, Turnage said he realized: 'Wow! This has got all the elements for a grand opera.' The dinner party's guests could be the opera chorus, Turnage recalled thinking, while the movie's speeches — including one in which Christian, the movie's middle-aged lead, accuses his father, Helge, of abuse — would make great arias. 'I could see the people singing onstage,' Turnage said. 'I could see music in it.' The movie also spoke to him personally, Turnage added. While his own family gatherings had none of the horrors of 'Festen,' he said he identified with Christian confronting his father. Turnage said his own father, who died last year, had spanked him as a child, and was 'quite brutal' when he did. The composer said he was still angry about that. 'I wanted my dad to say, Sorry,' Turnage said. 'I knew he never regretted it.' For the 'Festen' libretto, Turnage turned to Lee Hall, a lyricist best known for 'Billy Elliot.' It was a relatively easy task, Hall said, because Vinterberg's screenplay was so dramatic and concise — all he had to do was 'lift the movie gently into a new medium.' Turnage said the music features some jazzy moments, like in his recent guitar concerto 'Sco,' as well as lush strings reminiscent of old movie soundtracks. The opera's set pieces, he added, include a grotesque arrangement of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' and a 'drunken conga' in which the dinner party guests dance tipsily across the stage. Because the music and libretto came easily, Turnage said, the hardest parts of making 'Festen' work had fallen on Richard Jones, the director, who had to choreograph dozens of singers dancing, eating and arguing their way through the troubled evening. Jones, who also directed 'Anna Nicole,' said in an interview that 10 singers, portraying chefs and waiters, will serve the birthday party's guests a real three-course banquet during the opera, and the singers would eat it onstage. The cast, led by Allan Clayton as Christian and Gerald Finley as Helge, will appear to drink continually, Jones said, and act progressively drunker. The creative team and the Royal Ballet and Opera had tried to protect the performers as they dealt with the opera's dark subject matter, Jones added. During rehearsals, Turnage and Hall replaced a song featuring racist epithets that appears in the movie after some chorus members said they were uncomfortable with singing those words. (The chorus now sings 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' instead.). The company had also employed two drama therapists to counsel singers if they found the subject of child abuse troubling, Jones added. To appreciate the broader message of 'Festen,' the audience would have to look past the abuse, Hall said, and see that 'the leitmotif of the whole project was our collective collusion in denial.' 'Festen' is a broadside against pretending that problems don't exist, rather than tackling them, he added — and that goes for subjects like climate change, as well as child abuse. To highlight that, Turnage and Hall have tinkered with the ending. In the movie, the abusive father arrives at breakfast the next day, and gives a speech of his own, in which he tells his children he loves them, even if they now hate him. But one of his sons ushers the patriarch away. In the opera, Hall said, the father's comeuppance won't be so clear. If all the evening's provocations weren't quite enough, for movie buffs, that could be a sacrilege too far. Though not for Vinterberg. The director said he couldn't remember whether Turnage had asked permission for the change. 'But, whatever,' he added. 'It's hereby granted.'
