It Is All About Dogme Movies

Dogme # 1: Festen (Denmark)
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Produced by Nimbus Film Productions

A man celebrates his sixtieth birthday with friends, relatives, his wife and children. This is a film about love, hate, the icy charm of the bourgeoisie and the loving arms of the chambermaid.At Helge's 60th birthday party, some unpleasant family truths are revealed.

Dogme # 2: Idioterne (Denmark)
Directed by Lars von Trier
Produced by Zentropa Entertainments

                                                 A group of young people, who live in a large house, pretend in the public to be idiots. They try to find their 'inner idiot'. By accident Karen gets involved in this group. In the end it turns out that one of them really had the disease the others were pretending and the group falls apart. Some serious questions about society's attitude to the disabled arise when watching the movie. The funny thing is the reactions to the idiots rather than the idiots themselves. The film is very provocative because of its sensitive subject. The movie seems to break with the Dogme rules, as film music appears, but von Trier reveals in an interview that the source of the music - the harmonica player - was located behind the camera while shooting. So the sound is always recorded with the image, however tricky this is to achieve.



Dogme # 3: Mifunes Sidste Sang (Denmark)
Directed by Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
Produced by Nimbus Film Productions

Kresten has moved from his parents farm on a small Danish island to Copenhagen in order to pursue his working career. When his father dies he has to move back to the farm, where nothing much has happened since he left. He places an add in the local newspaper to get help running the farm and taking care of his retarded brother. The whore Liva, who is running away from annoying telephone calls, answers it. But running away from your past isn't easy.

Dogme # 4: The King Is Alive (Denmark)
Directed by Kristian Levring
Produced by Zentropa Entertainments

A group of tourists are stranded in the Nabimian desert when their bus loses its way and runs out of fuel. Canned food and dew keep the tourists alive, but they are helplessly entrapped, completely cut off from the rest of the world. As courage and moral fibre weaken and relationships grow shaky, Henry, a theatrical manager, persuades the group to put on Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear.As the tourists work their way through Henry's hand-written scripts, real life increasingly begins to resemble the play.    

Dogme # 5: Lovers (France)

Directed by Jean-Marc Barr
Produced by TF1 International

jeanne (elodie bouchez) lives in paris and works in a small bookshop. one day dragan (sergej trifunovic), a yugoslavian painter, comes into the shop to look for a book and ends up arranging to meet jeanne for a post-work drink. the two become lovers, communicating mainly in english as their dragan's french and jeanne's serbo-croation aren't up to scratch. the two fall in love, but trouble sits just on the horizon...

Dogme # 6: Julien Donkey-Boy (USA)

Directed by Harmony Korine
Produced by Independent Pictures

The film is about a dysfunctional family consisting of Julien (Ewen Bremner), a young man with untreated schizophrenia, his sister (Chloë Sevigny) who is possibly carrying his child, his athletic brother (Evan Neuman), and his domineering, German father (Werner Herzog). While his father dances in his room to Dock Boggs records while wearing a gas mask, his brother continually works-out in the hopes of becoming a wrestler, Julien is often walking the streets, or talking to himself as "King Julien".

Dogme # 7: Interview (Korea)

Directed by Daniel H. Byun
Produced by CINE 2000 Production

A up and coming young filmmaker, is interviewing actors for an upcoming project when he is introduced to Yeong-heui, a hairdresser who tagged along with a close friend auditioning for a role. Eun-seok is struck by Yeong-heui's beauty, and he interviews her for a role, though she's quite shy and doesn't seem comfortable in front of a camera. Before Eun-seok can get his project off the ground, Yeong-heui disappears, and he discovers that the woman used an assumed name for her impromptu audition. Twelve months later, Eun-seok is working in France as part of the camera crew of another director's film, and he discovers Yeong-heui is living there, working as a dance instructor. He soon learns the truth about her recent past, while she is told of his failed romance in Paris.

Dogme # 8: Fuckland (Argentina)

Directed by Jose Luis Marques
Produced by ATOMIC FILMS S.A.

Fabián, a magician from Buenos Aires, saves his money from weddings, birthdays, and bar mitzvahs, and uses a hidden camera to document a week-long trip to the Falkland Islands where he has a patriotic plan: to impregnate a British woman. If 500 Argies do this annually, the islands will soon be overrun with children belonging to both cultures. He spends his first couple of days in Stanley doing reconnaissance, setting his sights on Camila, whom he's first seen in church. He chats her up at an Internet café. They go out for drinks, then dinner, then to the see the King penguins and a 1982 battlefield. Back home, editing his Dogma 95 film, he receives a final message from Camila.

Dogme # 9: Babylon (Sweden)

Directed by Vladan Zdravkovic
Produced by AF&P, MH Company

Dogme # 10: Chetzemoka's Curse (USA)
Directed by Rick Schmidt, Maya Berthoud,
Morgan Schmidt-Feng, Dave Nold,
Lawrence E. Pado, Marlon Schmidt
and Chris Tow.

 Only the second American Dogme 95 movie, Chetzemoka's Curse is about a young, twenty-something woman, Maya (Maya Berthoud), who is haunted by the memory of her first love and her subsequent betrayal. She still feels the pain, works to exorcise it as she wiles away her life as a maid in a small town hotel.But her road to health seems to include passing the bad karma along. She encourages an older married man to run off with her and betray his wife and kids. Betrayal is in the air. Even an itinerant street musician sings about his infidelity. Bottom line, he says, is that he betrayed himself.

Dogme # 11: Diapason (Italy)
Directed by Antonio Domenici
Produced by FLYING MOVIES s.r.l.

Two stories run on parallel lines in a nocturnal Rome. Marcello is an easygoing sixty-five year old film producer trying to convince a beautiful actress to accept a part in a film. The other protagonist is a group of petty criminals and illegal immigrants who pass the night stealing, taking drugs, having sex and drinking.

 

Dogme # 12: Italiensk For Begyndere (Denmark)

Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen), en enlig præst dukker op i den provinsby, hvor han skal vikariere. Han indlogerer sig på hotellet, hvor receptionisten Jørgen (Peter Gantzler) spørger, om han ikke vil være med på aftenskolens italiensk-hold. Holdet er ved at blive nedlagt, fordi de er for få. Da læreren en dag får et hjerteslag og dør, overtager Hal-Finn (Lars Kaalund) jobbet. Hal-Finn er forinden blevet fyret fra sit job som forpagter af et cafeteria i den lokale sportsklub. Jørgen er dybt forelsket i den italienske skønhed Giulia (Sara Indrio Jensen), som arbejder i samme sportsklub, men han kan ikke kan finde ud af at sige det til hende. Bedre bliver det ikke af, at hun ikke taler dansk og Jørgen ikke taler italiensk. Olympia (Anette Støvelbæk) bruger italiensk-holdet som undskyldning for at komme lidt hjemmefra. Hun har en meget dominerende far (Jesper Christensen). En aften finder Olympia ham død i sin lænestol. Nu er hun helt alene i verden. Damefrisøren Carmen (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen) har problemer med sin krævende og dybt alkoholiserede mor (Lene Tiemroth)og det ender med at moderen dør på hospitalet - hjulpet lidt på vej af Carmen. De to piger mødes ved begravelsen, hvor det viser sig, at de fakstisk er søstre og de knytter sig til hinanden. Olympia opfordrer Carmen ti at begynde på italiensk-holdet og Hal-Finn og hun indleder et forhold. Olympia arver en del penge og hun forærer Carmen penge, så hun kan købe sin egen frisørsalon. Olympia foreslår at italiensk-holdet tager en tur til Venedig.

Dogme # 13: Amerikana (USA)
Directed by James Merendino
Produced by Gerhard Schmidt and Sisse Graum Olsen
Cologne Gemini Filmproduktion and Zentropa Productions 2
Avedoere Tvaervej 10
2650 Hvidovre

Dogme # 14: Joy Ride (Switzerland)
Directed by Martin Rengel
Produced by ABRAKADABRA Films AG
Theaterstrasse 10
CH-8001 Zürich
Swiss

The first Dogma-certified Swiss film, Joyride (Dogma #14) is based on a true story about teenage violence and murder. The main character is 18-year-old Sandra, a young Swiss woman bored with her life in a bleak industrial zone. But things get more exciting the day she meets up with a gang of neighborhood toughs, led by her heartthrob, Daniel. When Sandra becomes a member of the group and joins in their mischief, Daniel finds himself falling in love with her. They begin spending more and more time in one another's company until Daniel's lackeys decide it has gone too far. When Daniel refuses to dump Sandra, the gang arranges for a joyride into the countryside where they plot to get rid of her themselves. The film features Edward Piccin, better known to Swiss television audiences as the lovable Röbi on the popular sitcom, Mannerzimmer. ~ Connor McMadden, Rovi

Dogme # 15: Camera (USA)Directed by Rich Martini
Produced by Rich Martini
P.O. Box 248
Santa Monica, CA. 90406
USA

Story of a video camera that goes on an adventure around the world. It's stolen, pawned, bought and generally goes in and out of bedrooms, shoots commercials, follows the life of an average ordinary video camera that goes around the planet until it winds up in the hands of filmmaker Richard Martini. This film has been designated at Dogma #15 by the Danish film group Dogme95

Dogme # 16: Bad Actors (USA)
Directed by Shaun Monson
Produced by Nicole Visram
Immortal Pictures
4000-D West Magnolia Blvd.
Suite 260
Burbank, CA 91505
USA

Dogme # 17: Reunion (USA)
Directed by Leif Tilden
Produced by Kimberly Shane O'Hara and Eric M. Klein
5460 White Oak Avenue E335
Encino

A bittersweet and heartfelt story about going back. In the twenty-four hours before their 20th high school reunion, five friends, a younger brother and a mysterious photojournalist are reunited by determined Mayor Margaret to remember the good times of 1981

Dogme # 18: Et Rigtigt Menneske (Denmark)
Script and Director: Åke Sandgren
Produced by Ib Tardini
Zentropa Productions
Avedoere Tvaervej 10
2650 Hvidovre 

An enchanted innocent who loves children discovers he cannot be trusted in the modern world in this contemporary fable. Lise (Line Kruse) is a seven-year-old girl whose yuppie parents have little time to spend with her. Lonely and needing a grown-up role model, Lise conjures up an adult as an imaginary friend -- P (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a big but warm-hearted man who hides behind the walls of her bedroom when grown-ups are around. Lise dies in an auto wreck, and P is forced to enter the real world and fend for himself. Strangers take pity of the guileless P, and he soon has a job and a place to live, and even strikes up a friendship with Lise's parents, who only now realize how much they loved the daughter they lost. But as one might expect, P has a soft spot for children, and when he strikes up friendships with a number of kids in the neighborhood, several people wonder if he's making improper advances towards his young acquaintances. Director Ake Sandgren filmed Et Rigtift Menneske using the strictly acetic boundaries of the Dogma 95 style.


Dogme # 19: Når Nettene Blir Lange (Norway)
Directed by Mona J. Hoel
Produced by Malte Forssell
Freedom From Fear A/S 

A large family is going to the mountain for their christmas vacation, in a rented cabin. Problems occur on Christmas Eve when the father gets drunk and his alcohol problem comes to show. We get to learn a lot about the family's background, and secrets are revealed. If you look behind the curtain, they've got a whole other story to tell than what it looks from the outside.

Dogme # 20: Strass (Belgium)
Directed by Vincent Lannoo
Produced by Dadowsky Film
Rue De Belgrade 13
1190 Forest (Brussels)
Belgium

 This film is a mockumentary about the experimental pedagogical methods of a megalomaniacal acting teacher at a Belgian theatre school. Pierre (Pierre Lekeux) terrorises his vulnerable students using a winning mix of verbal abuse and sexual harassment under the guise of his radical and innovative "Open Door Teaching" approach. His questionable practices are initially tolerated by the conservatory's staff and students because of Pierre's international acclaim as a teacher, but when he is caught on camera incontrovertibly crossing the line with a student, his supporters begin to turn away from him. That the majority of the film centres around this irredeemably unpleasant character makes Strass already quite difficult to watch. Add to this an unstructured improvised dialogue that all too often degenerates into petulant yelling matches and a glib, facile commentary about the ethics of documentary filmmaking that seems tacked-on in a vain attempt to lend some deeper meaning to the piece, and Strass becomes almost unbearable to sit through. Brief respite from this torrent of abuse comes occasionally in the form of Jerome (Jerome le Maire) as a student who is openly critical of Pierre from early on, and Lionel (Lionel Bourguet) as another teacher at the school who wants nothing to do with his colleague's twisted approach or the documentary that seeks to immortalise it. Unfortunately, the bright presence of these two and the voices of reason they represent are woefully underused in the film.