Thomas Vinterberg

Thomas Vinterberg (; born 19 May 1969) is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production. He is best known for the films The Celebration, Submarino (2010), The Hunt (2012), Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), and Another Round (2020). For Another Round he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, the first Danish filmmaker nominated in the Best Director category.

Early life and education Vinterberg was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark. In 1993, he graduated from the National Film School of Denmark with (Sidste omgang), which won the jury and producers' awards at the Internationales Festival der Filmhochschulen München, and First Prize at Tel Aviv.

Career In 1993 Vinterberg made his first TV drama for DR TV and his short fiction film , produced by at Nimbus Film. The film won awards at the 1994 Nordisk Panorama Film Festival, the International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, and the Toronto International Film Festival. At the turn of the century, Vinterberg participated in the experimental broadcast D-dag, where he and three other filmmakers directed broadcasts on four different channels, with the viewer able to switch between them and create their own viewing experience. A final edit was released in 2001.

In 2003, he directed the apocalyptic science fiction romance-drama It's All About Love, a film he wrote, directed and produced himself over a period of five years. The film was entirely in English and featured, among others, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes, and Sean Penn. The movie did not do well, as critics and audiences found it idiosyncratic and somewhat incomprehensible. His next film, the English-language Dear Wendy (2005), scripted by Lars von Trier, had poor ticket sales in his native Denmark where it sold only 14,521 tickets. However he won the Silver George for Best Director at the 27th Moscow International Film Festival. Vinterberg then tried to retrace his roots with a smaller Danish-language production, En mand kommer hjem (2007), which also had poor ticket sales in his native Denmark, selling only 31,232 tickets.

On 1 August 2008, he directed the music video for "The Day That Never Comes", the first single off Metallica's album Death Magnetic. His 2010 film Submarino was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2012, his film The Hunt competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards.

In 2015, he directed Far from the Madding Crowd, an adaptation of the acclaimed Thomas Hardy novel, starring Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen and Tom Sturridge. Vinterberg reunited with Matthias Schoenaerts in Kursk, a film about the Kursk submarine disaster that happened in 2000.

In 2019, Vinterberg lost his daughter Ida in a car accident while she was traveling home from Belgium with her mother. As such, he dedicated Another Round (Druk) to her, while filming much of the film in her school with her classmates. Vinterberg was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for the film, which also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film; he dedicated the latter award to Ida.

In 2024, Vinterberg's first foray into directing for TV was broadcast in Denmark. The seven-episode series called Families like Ours explores a near-future Denmark when the country is gradually evacuated due to rising sea levels.

Filmography Short film Year Title Director Writer Producer 1990 Sneblind 1991 Brudevalsen 1993 Sidste omgang Slaget på tasken 1994 Drengen der gik baglæns

Feature film Year Title Director Writer Notes 1996 The Biggest Heroes written with 1998 The Celebration uncredited as director, written with Mogens Rukov 2003 It's All About Love written with Mogens Rukov 2005 Dear Wendy 2007 A Man Comes Home written with Mogens Rukov 2010 Submarino written with Tobias Lindholm 2012 The Hunt also producer, written with Tobias Lindholm 2015 Far from the Madding Crowd based on the book of the same name 2016 The Commune written with Tobias Lindholm 2018 Kursk based on the book A Time to Die 2020 Another Round written with Tobias Lindholm

Television Year Title Director Writer Notes 2001 D-Day Experimental film, in collaboration with Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring, and Lars von Trier 2024 Families like Ours Miniseries

Awards and honours In April 2016, the French government appointed Vinterberg a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. For his film Another Round he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.