Creo tambien que el arte o el cine en general debería llegar a ser un arma peligrosa que se la entregue el realizador a la gente. no para hacer daño, si no, para generar ese fuego que alimente sentimientos, sensaciones, sueños y que permitan a la gente mejorar. eso es todo. tratar de ser feliz.

Lo mejor que puede hacer un realizador despues de hacer un dogma o para el joven que tiene ganas de proyectar sus ideas o sentimientos a travez de las imagenes es lo que dicta su corazon y hacerlo ya!! no perder tiempo. crear, inspirarse y salir a buscar lo tuyo.

Espero que te sirva.

Saludos desde este rincon del mundo Chile y espero que te sirvan estas palabras.

Allan G Binns

At first, I’d like to know about your experience. What was it for you personally? And why did you choose this style?

I had just started making films, it was about 6 years ago.

I saw Harmony Korine’s ‘julien donkey boy’, which is more of a critique of domge95 rather than a by the rule book approach.

‘Julien donkey boy’ is still my favourite film. Korine breaks a few rules but he still keeps the spirit of dogme.

Dogme is an exploration of truth, beauty and ‘reality’ and a discussion of how we represent those things in fiction film.

For me i was always excited by the lo-fi style, it showed me that I could make feature films on a budget.

The viewer is not always looking at the trickery of how the film-maker shot the film, but always at the soul of the characters and the story. This is why is still shoot with dogme in mind.

What do you think about Dogme’s social positions, about its influence on the life (maybe politic, young people, education etc)?

I don’t think of dogme too seriously, not socially or politically.

It is just a way of making good, cheap films. It frees the film maker from the studios and expensive equipment.

And what about films after Dogme? Is this filmmaking movement topical now? What things modern art-house directors should keep in mind after Dogme?

Dogme is not topical, but relevant. Dogme will always be relevant.

The search for truth, beauty etc… will always be relevant.

Dogme is a way of communicating to the viewer like no other.

Dogme films represent reality better than any other… They give the viewer something tangible.

Something closer to truth.

Handheld cameras, raw footage, no tricks.

Hollywood is ok, pathos is ok, but if you want to truely touch and move a viewer read the vows of chastity, live them, breathe them.

Hunter Jones

Hi Daniil,

Thanks for the e-mail. The film in question was my first student film so I was a bit inexperienced with Dogme and it’s not something that I’m particularly focused on any longer. I guess you can say that I sort of moved on. At least with my own cinema experiences, I find Dogme to not be as widely regarded any longer as it once was when it was first organized in the late nineties (1997 I think). I think filmmakers just got tired of being restricted by it and If I am correct, it is not something that Von Trier focuses much on any longer. Over the years, filmmakers were breaking the rules of Dogme, but that is something that was bound to happen. One might surmise that it just took its natural course. It was here to teach filmmakers and audiences the naturalistic approach to film storytelling.

I myself being naive at the time really did not understand a lot of the implications that Dogme had on me or society, but I think completing the film and studying it a bit more provided me with some understanding of the reason it was created. The reason that I found interest in the style was that in some ways I really felt that it provided filmmakers with a sense of freeing oneself and allowing more of a natural approach as mentioned above. There is something about capturing a man on a journey in the middle of the desert that is really freeing and might even have the ability to capture the soul of filmmaking. If you think about it, filmmakers were out in the elements with nothing more than merely a camera and any other essential gear. That part interested me the most because it allowed for the «realness» to be captured and nothing felt artificial.

In a manner of speaking, it sort of died altogether for me after completing that short film. I moved on to try different things, but at the time still kept an interest in watching those films. A favorite of mine and maybe still to this day is Juliendonkeyboy. I think The Apartment was another great one.

Unfortunately, these days I find that Dogme is really just vanished. I have not heard or seen anything from the movement in quite some time and do not even know if filmmakers are still practicing it. I wish that more young film students knew about it because it is something that definitely warrants attention and even potential study of it.

I am ultimately glad that I found Dogme because it helped me gain a sense