Episode #14 - Dogma 95 at 30 with Richard T. Kelly

Joe Tindall

Mar 03, 2025

Transcript

In March 1995, the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier stood on stage in the Odeon cinema in Paris, then holding a conference celebrating cinema’s first century, and read the Dogma 95 manifesto. Signed by von Trier and fellow Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, the Manifesto makes many references to the perceived failure of the French nouvelle vague movement of the 50s and 60s, and calls for the use of a raging “technological storm” to strip films of their cosmetics and their reliance on illusion. The reading ended with von Trier showering his audience in copies of the manifesto printed on distinctive red paper.

Perhaps more famous than the manifesto itself is the accompanying ‘Vows of Chastity’ that Dogma filmmakers would commit to. The Vows are a series of creative restrictions: cameras must be handheld; locations and props must be real; only available light can be used, and genre films are prohibited.

The first Dogma film was Vinterberg’s Festen in 1998, shortly followed by Von Trier’s The Idiots. Fellow Danes Sore Kragh-Jacobsen Kristian Levring joined the Dogma ‘brotherhood’, making Mifune (1999) and The King is Alive (2000) respectively. The project also travelled outside Scandinavia, with Jean-Marc Barr’s Lovers shot in France in 1999, and the American Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy released the same year.

I’m conscious that we don’t describe the plots of these films in much detail on the podcast. If you’re unfamiliar, here are some trailers that introduce the tone and style of Dogma 95 reasonably well, although they do use un-Dogma elements such as superimposed graphics and non-diegetic music.

We are now 30 years on from the initial disruption of the Dogma 95 project, and so it seems an apt moment to take stock of the movement and its relevance in 2025. So I spoke with Richard T. Kelly, of the aforementioned Dogme documentary and book. Richard and I discuss Lars von Trier’s work before Dogma 95, the distinctively Scandinavian flavour of the initial films, the common dismissal of Dogme as a brand or marketing exercise, the legacy of the movement, and more. Please enjoy.