Dogma isn’t useless!
In a packed presser this afternoon on the Zentropa villa in Cannes, filmmakers Could el-Toukhy, Milad Alami, Annika Berg, Isabella Eklöf and Jesper Simply introduced that they’re launching a rebranded Dogma manifesto, styled as Dogma 25, to “shield the inventive integrity of function movie and create area for uncompromising cinematic storytelling.”
The manifesto accommodates 10 new dogmas, and the filmmakers mentioned they’ve taken a “new vow of chastity” to uphold the principles, which they defined are influenced by three central themes: a return to the bodily actuality, aesthetic restrain and financial and geographic accountability. You possibly can learn the complete listing of dogmas under.
No. 1 on the listing compels every director to solely work on screenplays which might be unique and handwritten by the director. The listing calls for that the web is off limits in all artistic processes, and the filmmakers should solely settle for funding with no content-altering situations hooked up.
Dogma 25 arrives 30 years after the unique Dogma 95, which included Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen and Kristian Levring. Movies produced underneath the earlier manifesto embody such seminal European options as Festen (1998) and The Idiots (1998).
Of their new manifesto, the Dogma 25 group mentioned they “rejoice Dogma 95, the filmmakers who got here earlier than us, and those that will come after.”
“We stand collectively to defend inventive freedom as a protect towards pointlessness and powerlessness. Dogma 25 is a rescue mission and a cultural rebellion,” they wrote.
The manifesto’s preamble continues: “In a world the place formulaic movies based mostly on algorithms and synthetic visible expression are gaining traction, it’s our mission to face up for the flawed, distinct, and human imprint. We champion the uncompromising and unpredictable, and we battle towards the forces working to scale back cinematic artwork to an ultra-processed shopper product.”
In response, Vinterberg and von Trier added in a press release: “In ’95, we made movies within the certainty of peace. And created a revolt towards conformity. In ’25, new dogmas are created, now in a world of conflict and uncertainty. We want you the most effective of luck in your march towards reconquering Danish movie.”
El-Toukhy is a director and screenwriter finest recognized for her 2019 function Queen of Hearts, which debuted at Sundance. Alami is behind the 2023 function Opponent, which debuted at Berlin and was submitted as Sweden’s entry for the Worldwide Oscar. Berg is a filmmaker and visible artist. Her function Staff Hurricane (2017) received the Verona Movie Membership Award at Venice.
Eklöf made her directorial debut with the Sundance title movie Vacation (2018). She additionally directed Kalak (2023), which received the Particular Prize of the Jury at San Sebastian. She can also be the co-writer of Ali Abbasi’s Border. Simply is a video artist and filmmaker. He represented Denmark on the fifty fifth Venice Biennale and has been the topic of quite a few solo exhibitions, together with Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Guggenheim (NYC), and Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam). His work is included in a number of everlasting public collections comparable to MoMA, The Met, and Tate Trendy.
Manifesto:
DOGMA 25 is a collective of filmmakers based in Copenhagen within the spring of 2025. Our said objective is to protect the originality of cinema and the chance to create movie by itself phrases.
The function of the director has more and more been decreased to that of mission supervisor, the movie to a commodity, and the viewers to customers. Experimental apply is stifled by worry of risktaking, which suffocates inventive exploration and silences distinctive voices. When movies are merely executed and never allowed to evolve organically, it places the artwork kind at risk of changing into purposeful, obedient and thereby irrelevant.
In a world the place formulaic movies based mostly on algorithms and synthetic visible expression are gaining traction, it’s our mission to face up for the flawed, distinct, and human imprint. We champion the uncompromising and unpredictable and we battle the forces working to scale back cinematic artwork to an ultra-processed shopper good.
By cutting down manufacturing, we make sure that everybody on the group has an intimate relationship with the movie and its message. It will improve mutual belief and a way of collective accountability for the movie and for one another. It additionally permits us to safeguard the pliability that’s important in making a artistic course of dynamic and intuitive, reasonably than purely government.
We rejoice DOGMA 95, all of the filmmakers who got here earlier than us, and those that will come after. We stand collectively to defend inventive freedom as a protect towards pointlessness and powerlessness. DOGMA 25 is a rescue mission and a cultural rebellion.
To guard and protect what we maintain expensive, we hereby undergo the unflinching and unbreakable algorithm referred to as: THE VOW OF CHASTITY.
THE VOW OF CHASTITY: I vow to undergo the next algorithm drawn up and confirmed by DOGMA 25:
1. The script should be unique and handwritten by the director. We compel ourselves to jot down the script by hand so as to nurture the sort of instinct that flows most freely from the dream, channelled by way of the hand onto the paper.
2. Not less than half the movie should be with out dialogue. We insist on a cinematic strategy to filmmaking, as a result of we consider in visible storytelling and place confidence in the viewers.
3. The web is off limits in all artistic processes. We commit to supply the movies counting on actual folks inside our bodily actuality – reasonably than in a digital one infused with algorithms.
4. We’ll solely settle for funding with no content material altering situations hooked up. We assume accountability for holding budgets down so the group retains remaining say in all inventive choices.
5. Not more than 10 folks behind the digicam. We decide to working in shut collaborations to construct belief and strengthen our shared imaginative and prescient.
6. The movie should be shot the place the narrative takes place. Movie as an artwork kind turns into synthetic and generic once we painting a location in a false gentle.
7. We’re not allowed to make use of make-up or manipulate faces and our bodies until it’s a part of the narrative. Simply as we attempt to take care of the authenticity of the situation, we additionally need to painting the human physique with out a filter. We rejoice it – warts and all.
8. All the things referring to the movie’s manufacturing should be rented, borrowed, discovered, or used. We commit to creating movies utilizing objects that exist already and resign the ahistorical and self-destructive tradition of consumerism.
9. The movie should be made in no a couple of yr. We abstain from any prolonged processes that stand in the way in which of artistic circulate.
10. Create the movie as if it have been your final.
