The Name of This Film Is Dogme95 (2000)

• 72%
• 2000
• Documentary
• Saul Metzstein
• Lars von Trier
• Thomas Vinterberg
• Jean-Marc Barr

The Name of this Film is Dogme95 is an irreverent documentary exploring the origins of Dogme95, the most influential movement in world cinema for a generation. The film tells how a 'brotherhood' of four Danish directors armed with a radical Manifesto, has inspired, outraged and provoked filmmakers and filmgoers the world over. The rules of Dogme95 take filmmaking back to its brass-tacks - stories must be set in the here and now; the films must be shot on location, with a handheld camera, using natural light, and direct sound; the rules forbid murders and weapons (staples of the much-loved action-movie genre); and, most amusingly, the director must not be credited (that holds also for the director of The Name of this Film is Dogme95...). Dogme95 was formally baptised in 1998 at the Cannes Film Festival, when Martin Scorsese's jury awarded a top prize to Thomas Vinterberg's Dogme#1: Festen, a disturbing story of sexual abuse in an upper-class family. Then Lars von Trier himself raised the stakes of controversy with his flabbergasting Dogme#2: The Idiots, about a group of ne'er-do-wells who challenge their society and themselves by impersonating spastics in public. By the time Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's Dogme#3: Mifune triumphed at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival, Dogme95 had become the pride of Denmark and the envy of all European cinema. An investigative journey, The Name of this Film is Dogme95 is presented by film journalist and author Richard Kelly. His voyage begins with a tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of the conventions of a classic gangster-movie murder-scene. One-by one the Dogme95 rules are imposed until the documentary itself is pure Dogme (well, pure-ish!). Accompanied by a nimble digital video crew, Kelly travels to Copenhagen to interrogate the ringleaders of the Dogme95 circus about the cocktail of gossip and legend that has made Dogme95 such a public relations success-story.