The events and characters depicted in this motion
picture are fictitous. Any similarity to actual persons,
living or dead is purely coincidental



This is a story, you should read to the end. Or don't read. The half story is only the half truth. And as you might know,
you should beware of half truths. And certainly in a article like this. I can't tell you anymore right now. Sorry.
We are listening on a radio program, that was broadcasted on the danish radio station P1 yesterday. It's a piece of the
audiotrack from the dogme movie 'Festen'. Somebody hits a glass with a knife. A chair rattles. "I would like to propose
the first toast, its my duty as the oldest son. But first i will like to make a speech", says a voice.
It's Urich Thomsen's. The actor.
"I've written two speeches, dad. One is green, and one is yellow. And you can choose wich one you want".
Another voice sound in the distance.
Henning Moritzen's.
"I choose the green one", he says.
"The green one is a interesting choice. It is a kind of truth speech. And i call it 'When dad took his shower', says
Ulrich Thomsen.
Somebody knock over a glass of water.
"I don't know if you remember that dad allways took baths. But first he took Linda and me in to his office. There was
something he needed to take care of first. Then he locked the door, pulled the curtain down and lighted a candle".
Laugh among the guest's.
"And then he took off his shirt...".
Another voice blend in. Not from the movie. From the radio program. A clear and fine voice.
"Yeah, I reconize my dad's face now".


From radio to movie

The name behind the voice is Allan. It was under that pseudonym, he in 1996 appeared in the radio program
'Koplevs Krydsfelt' telling about the incest he was exposed to. The contact was arranged through The Danish
Supportcenter against Incest. For two hours the 34 year old Allan told the programs host, Kjeld Koplev, and P1
listeners a shocking story about, how he and his twin sister was sexually abused by their stepfather.
He also told about, how he at his stepfathers 60th birthday in front of 78 gathered guests, in a speech revealed his
stephfathers sexual assaults.
Thomas Vinterberg film had premiere two years later. It became a big succes. After that, cinemagoers from all over the
have watched the drama, when Urich Thomsen stands up, and reveals, how his father sexually abused him and his twin
sister. In the movie the sister commits suicide shortly before the party, because of the sexual abuse.
"A toast to the man, who killed my sister", Urich Thomsens says in 'Festen'.
"A toast to a murderer".
"Just my words", says Allan.
For years Thomas Vinterberg was quiet about, where he had got the idea to his movie from. Two years ago a journalist
from Weekendavisen tried to find Allan. In vain. Allan had died from aids. Somebody even thought he was an actor, that
Thomas Vinterberg had planted in 'Koplevs Krydsfelt' to make promotion for his new movie.
Yesterday the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Allan exits, the journalist Lisbeth Jessen told in her radio
montage 'Efter Festen'. She found him recently.

Didn't know about 'Festen'

It has now been 6 years, since he told his story in 'Koplevs Krydsfelt'. Shortly after he moved to a little village in
S�nderjylland. Allan is homosexual. His boyfriend died in 1995, the year before he appeared in 'Koplevs Krydsfelt'. And
now Allan has full-blown aids. He hasn't seen the movie 'Festen'. Actually he didn't know, that the story in the famous
dogme movie was build on his own story. Not before Lisbeth Jessen told him.
"The first few days i was really confused, cause i thought: It cannot be! It cannot be", he told in the radio program
yesterday. The audiotrack from the movie continues. Urich Thomsen is in the middle of his speech.
"And then he took off his shirt. And his pants. And then we had to do the same. And then he layed us on the green bed,
and raped us, abused us sexually, had sex with his little ones. Ha, i thought: they should know that about my father.
Helge is a clean man, and we are gathered here today to celebrate Helge on his 60th birthday".
Again we hear Allans clear voice.
"Yeah, i was exactly as sarcastic".
Allan tells that his family looks a lot like the family in 'Festen'. There was him and his twin sister, Pernille, their
mother and stepfather and then a two younger half-siblings.
He tells that the stepfathers abuse was precisely as in the movie. It was in a hotel the family rented in S�nderjylland.
It was here the fathers 60th birthday was held.
"It was shortly after my twin sister committed suicide because of the incest, she had been exposed to as a child", Allan
tells in the program.
"And then i recieved a invitation to his birthday. And then i thought: Great! It has to be done that day.
The journalist Lisbeth Jessen asks if Allan think that some of the many guests or one of his siblings maybe will tell
about the notorious speech. No, says Allan. They are all loaded down with shame. But his mother? asks the journalist.
"No", says Allan.
"You would need to hyptonise her. No, she experience it as something really offensive. Cause most of the time she has
been standing on the sideline and knowing very well what was happening. But she just didn't had the strength and didn't
had the power and the courage to stand up.


The sisters suicide

Again we hear the audiotrack from the movie. We are in the scene where, the sister, Paprika Steen, suddenly feels bad,
when she walks out in the bathroom, where the sister committed suicide.
"Strange", says Allan.
"My sister did the same. Hang herself in the bathroom".
Allan and his twin sister, Pernille, both worked as nurse's, at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, he tells. They both had
long hair. Her was light, his dark. But they looked like each other.
"People could see we were twins, when we walked around i our white uniforms".
One day they had an appointment after work, but she called and canceled. Allan tells that it didn't seem like her, to do
something like that.
"So i thought: Hey, this is weird. So i went over to her place, and then she just hang there. But there was nothing i could
do. I couldn't cut her down, she had hung there too long. But i do understand why she did it", he tells.
Pernille is tabu in the family. You don't talk about her. And the stepfather has destroyed all the pictures with her, in
the family's album. "He burned the negatives", Allen tells in the program.
"I guess he wanted to cover up the tracks".
Festen isn't something you talk about in the family either, Allan tells. Some has seen is, but turned off halfway through
it.


Vinterberg thanks

Thomas Vinterberg stand by his debt to Allans story in the radio montage 'Efter Festen'. A friend told him about Allans
appearance in 'Koplevs krydsfelt', he tells. Later he heard the program himself, and that gave him the idea to 'Festen's
manuscript.
"I quickly felt, that this was a story, that was very important in many ways. Not because it's about incest, but because
it's about repressing secrets inside the family", he says.
He didn't tell many people where he got the idea from, because of legally reasons. Of fear that Allans father should raise
objections against the movie, he tells. It could have been expensively. Thats why it was important to maintain, that
'Festen' was fiction. "I had to lie about, where i'd got the story from, wich made it seem, that i wanted to steal the story
and didn't want to admit, that i got from there", says Thomas Vinterberg in the radio program.
But when he recieved a Bodil for 'Festen', he let legal be legal and from the scene he said thank you to 'Koplevs
krydsfelt' for the idea. He never met Allan. And actually he thought it was strange, that he never heard from him. Later
he was told, that Allan was dead.
"I got really sad at the thought of, he maybe hadn't got the chance to see the movie and that he maybe never knew,
the effect he has had on the surrounding world. It's meant quite a lot", he says in the radio program.
"It's strange, that a tragedy like this can give another man wings. But thats what happend".
Nevertheless they meet. The meeting took place in Allans apartment somewhere in S�nderjylland. At open microphone.
"I want you to know, that i've been celebrated on the basis of your tragic story and your very brave story", says Thomas
Vinterberg and explains to Allan, what his story has meant to people all over the world."It makes people think about their
own secrets in their own family, that isn't necessarily the same story as yours. So when you hit that glass and got up - It
has created a wave. I just thought you should know. And i wanna say that i am deeply grateful for that". Allan thanks
Thomas. He is also happy, that they finally meet each other. The ring is now ended, he says.
Allan tells Vinterberg, how he hit the glass and made the speech, that was the pivotal point in 'Festen' and now is
inscribed in almost every dane's mind.
"Did you write down a speech?", asks the director.
"No", says Allan.
"When did you decide, that you were going to do it?".
"Actually i did on the trip from Sj�lland to Jylland, i needed to do something, and it was now or never".
Thomas Vinterberg asks if he can see a picture of Allans twin sister.
"Yeah i can get one, then i can send it to you", replies Allan.
"I think, there is one of both of us at my mothers house".
Thomas Vinterberg has travelled back to Copenhagen, the story changes not until now. We have now heard the
green speech. It's time for the yellow.


Imagination

Lisbeth Jessen have visited the little town, where Allan told his twin sister was buried. She couldn't find the sisters
grave. On the other hand she has talked with Allan uncle, and the story, he tells, doesn't match Allans.
It true that his stepfather used to work at a hotel called 'Fjordhotellet'. But it was not as tenant, it was as a cook.
And the family never lived on the hotel, the father died two years ago, the uncle tells. And then there is the twin
sister Pernille. She has never existed.
Lisbeth Jessen confronts Allan with this.
"I don't know what to say", he replies.
He explains, that his boyfriend died in 1995, shortly before he appeared in 'Koplevs krydsfelt'.
"And it was a point of my life, where i sort of lived in my own little world, didn't talked to anybody and got a little
crazy and i was told, that it proberly was a good idea to be hospitalized, but i refused it", he tells.
"I don't really know, if the fantasy inside my head just went on, by virtue of i felt so bad. I simply think, that it
was all the negative, all the sorrow, all the bad things in my life, that just simply poured out. And then it was just
with different words".
At first you down really understand it. Does he sit there and admitting, that the hole thing is just a story, he had made
up? Apparently yes. The story in 'Koplevs krydsfelt'. And everything else he has told.
But the speech?, asks Lisbeth Jessen.
"It's plucked out of the air", says Allan.
"It's not like, i had written it all down on a note, what i was going to say, and that there was a manuscript. It all
came to me during that program back then".
"And shortly after, i moved down here. After that program actually, where i was hospitalized on a psychiatric
hospital. I was stark raving mad".
But all that about Pernille, says the journalist. Is that something, that come to you during the program?
"Well it all does. I think, that Pernille is a fictitious person, that i've put all the emotions from my relationship
or loosing a partner, i've just taken those emotions with me and put them in another type, i think".
"And i have no idea, where i got that name from, cause i don't know anyone called Pernille, and i have never known
anyone, whos name was Pernille".
But the incest, says the journalist. Was there incest?
"No. No incest".
The celebration never took place. It's all someting, Allan made up, while he spoke with Kjeld Koplev in the radio.
Slowly, while answers followed questions, he made up a story, in a radio studio in 1995. A story that would become
one of Denmark's biggest movie success ever.
Some of the story is true. Allan had a tough childhood. They were three children, and the family lived in a old,
rotten house, toilet in the basement and cold water. The parents got home late. And when they got home, they were
fighting.


Fair enough

"It makes no difference to the movie", says Thomas Vinterberg to Politiken, after he heard the program.
"And it didn't made i difference either, when i told people, that it actually was a really nice person, that held
the speech. It does not alter the fact, that many people has come to me and told me about their own parents, and
what they have experienced".
"But it's amazing to make up a story like that. The hole 'game' with his sister and stepfather is just so
psychologically correct. So now i know, where to call, next time i need a good story".
Thomas Vinterberg hope, that Allan will come out of the story without scars".
"Cause he is a really nice guy. And actually, i am the one that apologize. Because i wouldn't leave him and his
fairy stories alone".
Kjeld Koplev doesn't have big problems either, with the fact that the story now - apparently - has been revealed
as pure fiction. Even though he is not convinced, that what we now have heard, is the truth.
"The new story he tells, could be lies too", he says.
'Koplevs krydsfelt' got contact with Allan through The Danish Supportcenter against Incest. The deal was, that he
should talk about incest. He first started on the story about the celebration and the speech, when he was in the
studio.
"But if he haven't experienced incest, he must have lied to many others", says Kjeld Koplev.
According to Lisbeth Jessen, Allan now feel better, than he has ever felt. He is relieved to finally have told
everything outright. Even though it was on the radio.
"I am really relieved now", he says in the end of the program.
"And embarrassed and sorry and a lot of other mixed emotions at the same time".
Who do you want to apologize to? asks Lisbeth Jessen.
"First of all to you, because you have spend so much time on this", says Allan.
"And to Thomas. Because he obviously must have thought, that the story was worth bringing out. Cause if he did
not believe.... you know. If he from the start thought, that the hole thing was strange, then he proberly
wouldn't have made it such a big project, as he has did".
"And then to all the people, that have seen it either as a film or as a play".
"You shouldn't always trust everything you hear".

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