Nearing 70, Danish director Gabriel Axel decided to think big and directed one of the greatest European movies ever made, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Set in a remote 19th Danish century village, Babette’s Feast stars Stéphane Audran in the title role as French refugee Babette Hersant, taken in by two sisters who have led a rigid life focused around their father, the local minister, and their church.

Babette agrees to work as their servant, but everything changes when Babette wins the lottery. However, instead of traveling or buying things for herself, she decides to repay the sisters for their kindness by cooking a French meal for them and their friends on the 100th anniversary of their father’s birth.

Babette’s Feast is a  flawless adaptation of the story by Isak Dinesen – the pen name of Danish author Karen Blixen (Out of Africa) – written by Blixen as part of a bet to see if she could get a story published in the Saturday Evening Post. She lost the bet as it was rejected. However, it was published in Ladies Home Journal and went on to be regarded as a classic.

Why the prize was so small?

The lottery at the time when the movie is set gave smaller prizes than today. That said it’s now more understandable how Babette was only able to buy a huge dinner and take nothing else from the prize. A lot of European countries now have a common lottery. The UK has participated in the Euro Lottery since 2004 and if the move were set nowadays, surely she could buy something else for her community besides an epic meal.