Getting ready for Dogma 25

“Chaos reigns.”

Isabella Eklöf, four weeks into a nine-week shooting schedule, starts her set report with a well-chosen phrase. The film is Mr Nawashi, a BDSM love story, planned as the first release in the Dogma 25 project.

“We’re shooting with a phone. The script, based on my own lived experience, constantly gets rewritten… It’s experimental, it’s pleasurable. People say it looks good. I’m going to trust them, because I have no idea what we’re actually doing at the moment.”

The two leading actors, newcomer Tanya Holm Andersen and well-established Esben Smed, play a couple who’ve entered a relationship saturated in BDSM roleplay rules, carried out 24/7.

“Tanya is all in: curious, creative, excited. Esben’s got the more intellectual approach. He analyses a lot, and is frustrated by the last minute script changes. Quite understandably. People react differently to chaos. Some get stimulated, some get challenged. There’s also all the sex, dammit.”

Dogma 25 – inspired by, but far from identical to the Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg-initiated Dogma 95 movement – was launched at the 2025 Cannes film festival. Originator-conceiver is May el-Touky, whose celebrated debut feature Queen of Hearts (Dronningen, 2019) led to international work on highly prestigious TV series like The Crown in the early 2020s. A little later, el-Touky made a phone call that would give birth to the movement.

On the other end of the line was Zentropa producer Louise Vesth.

“On a November evening in 2024, May called from a minivan somewhere in the Baltics, busy scouting for a location that looked like…Copenhagen. ‘Listen, Louise,’ she said, ‘I’m just fed up with all the hassle, shooting in strange places, struggling to get the right financing and having to cut down on shooting days. What happened to creativity and joy? it’s hard, you know. ’ I said I knew, all too well.”

“Then she said: ‘Next year, Dogma 95 has its 30th anniversary – perhaps it’s time to start up a new Dogma movement. Would you be on board with that?’ To which I replied: ‘There’s nothing I’d rather be more on board with.’”

As implied, the new version differs from the “Trier” one, not least when highlighting the creator. Whereas Dogma 95 demanded that “The director must not be credited” (Rule #10), Vesth had an opposite preference.

“It’s what I’ve come to call ‘a director’s revolution’,” says Vesth. “I wanted to reclaim the spotlight on the modern auteurs, get them full support in creating a most ambitious artistic piece of cinema. Zentropa will blaze the trails, but won’t be involved in any demands or stipulations. The content should be solely driven by the director. This is something we miss out on these days.”

The task of putting together a new group was promptly handed to el-Touky, who today forms a quintet with Milad Alami, Annika Berg, Jesper Just and Isabella Eklöf. Vesth calls the constellation “just fantastic”.

“I just can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with.”

The rules, presented in May 2025, were put down by the five members at Zentropa’s own resident houseboat, docked at Frederiksholm’s channel in the heart of Copenhagen and augmented with some bottles of very good wine.

“I’m surprised by how well they turned out,“ says Eklöf. “After applying them ‘in real life’, they’re really good and really fun. I’m impressed by my colleagues.”

Eklöf plans to have her film ready for a possible Cannes 2027 premiere. Alami and el-Touky are currently finishing two “non-Dogma” films, and Berg is currently waiting for her preferred actress to be available. “Jesper is underway,” reports Eklöf. “We’ve been talking about filming one scene jointly, a scene that will feature in both our films.”

Filmmakers from other territories have joined in. During this year’s Cannes festival, a German fivesome was presented, among them Tom Tykwer. A UK group is in the works. It’s a marked discrepancy from the original Dogma group’s rather doomed attempts to bring in foreign name talent – letters were sent to the likes of Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman, none of whom (expectedly?) ever replied. Louise Vesth has some clear reflections on the state of things today, compared to back then.

“Today, we know of the impact of those first Dogme films, because we have the hindsight; at that time it could immediately feel a bit strange to some. Add to that the technological revolution of the Dogma films made, possibly a bit too radical for established filmmakers – many still shot on real celluloid, and it certainly meant a certain amount of devil-may-care to jump on the bandwagon. Today, the scenario is entirely different. There’s no technological revolution to relate to anymore, rather it’s the process that counts. How do we secure the filmmakers’ ability to preserve their artistic freedom and integrity and stay true to their vision? That’s at the forefront with Dogma 25. That’s something many of the established filmmakers will be drawn to, is my conviction.”

Interestingly, Dogma 25 has also managed to form an alliance with a most commercial player, namely Netflix. How does that work out?

“Zentropa has never worked with them before, namely because we haven’t been able to match their business model, with exclusive rights and final cut. But now they’ve turned to other solutions, more like the classical distributor. We have DR on board, and Nordisk Film deals with the theatrical distribution, while Netflix takes care of the streaming window. I take my hat off to them; they pay for the licence without any counterclaims on the content. I’m very proud of this deal, and very impressed with Netflix’ aim to brand and position themselves as a streaming service in favour of artistic cinema like this.

On the subject of brands – the name “Dogma” has to belong to the better ones, in the world of art cinema. Any thoughts here?

“I totally agree. And that’s the reason May chose to stick with it – because we could’ve chosen some other name, but we realised that we’d be compared to Dogma sooner or later. May approached the original fellows, Lars and Thomas, and enquired if she could keep the name. The blessing was overwhelming: ‘We stand on each other’s shoulders, and we keep building something valuable on previous experience and success and failure. So just go ahead, with God’s speed.’“