Thomas Vinterberg (born May 19, 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. In 1993 he graduated from the National Film School of Denmark with Last Round, which won the jury and producers' awards at the International Student Film Festival in Munich, and First Prize at Tel Aviv, as well as several other prizes; in 1994 the film received an Oscar nomination. That year Vinterberg made his first TV drama for DR TV and his short fiction film The Boy Who Walked Backwards, produced by Birgitte Hald at Nimbus.
This film has won awards and accolades all over the world, including Nordic Panorama in Iceland, the International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, and the Toronto Film Festival.
His first feature film was The Biggest Heroes (De Største Helte), a road movie that received acclaim in his native Denmark.
In 1995, Vinterberg formed the Dogme 95 movement with Lars von Trier, Kristian Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen.
Following that dogma in 1998, he conceived, wrote and directed (and also had a small acting role in) the first of the Dogme movies, The Celebration (Festen). He did not take credit as director and IMDB has it listed with no director. However, he and the film won numerous nominations and awards.
In 2003, he released the apocalyptic science fiction love story It's All About Love, a movie he wrote, directed and produced himself over a period of five years. This movie was entirely in English and featured, among others, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes, and Sean Penn. The movie was not very successful, as critics found it very complicated and hard to understand.
