Germany is doing Dogma.
A year after a group of young Danish directors, in Cannes, rebooted the groundbreaking 1990s indie film movement Dogme 95, movement, with Dogma 25, five German-speaking directors are doing their own, local-language spin-off.
Dirctors Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Babylon Berlin), Ilker Çatak (The Teacher’s Lounge, Yellow Letters), Nora Fingscheidt (System Crasher, The Outrun), Helene Hegemann (Axolotl Overkill) and Kurdwin Ayub (Mond) have signed on to the Dogma 25 “manifesto,” pledging to make movies that follow a strict “vow of chastity” that includes 10 “dogmas” intended to revitalize independent cinema in the age of algorithms and streaming conventions.
The 10 dogmas include restrictions that all scripts “must be original and handwritten”; that at least half of each film must be free of dialogue “to emphasize visual storytelling”; that the internet “is banned from the creative process to ensure connection to the physical world”; and that “no more than ten crew members are allowed behind the camera.”
Other requirements include that all Dogma 25 films must be shot in their real-world locations, with no cosmetic alterations to faces or bodies unless required by the story; that all materials — sets, props, costumes — must be reused or found; and that productions must be completed within a year to preserve urgency and creative flow.
“We are heading towards a world in which stories are already conceived as products before they have been experienced, filmed, or even felt,” said Tykwer, speaking at the launch of German Dogma 25, at the German Pavillion in Cannes on Saturday. “We want to take the opposite act.”
Çatak argued that the Dogma restrictions would allow the filmmakers to embrace “the impulses of the unexpected, because not everything can or needs to be controlled.”
Added Fingscheidt: “We’re all very different, and that’s what inspires us…Some of us already know exactly what we’re doing, others simply say yes to the creative process and look forward to the journeys to be completely unknown. But one certainty we stand by is that our decisions are human. The other certainty is that we stick together.”
The German Dogma 25 films will be produced by Berlin’s X Filme and Zentropa Deutschland, the German subsidiary of the original Dogma producers Zentropa, with X Filme releasing the resulting films in Germany. TrustNordisk will handle international sales on all German Dogma 25 movies.
The Danish Dogma 25 was launched last year by directors May el-Toukhy (Queen of Hearts), Milad Alami (Opponent), Annika Berg (Team Hurricane), Isabella Eklöf (Kalak), and Jesper Just (Vanishing Woman). The first Dogma 25 film, Eklöf’s Mr. Nawashi, has just begun filming.
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