dogme 95

Ten rules went round Copenhagen in 1995, signed by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg and titled a Vow of Chastity: shoot on location, add no light, use no music that is not playing in the room, take no director's credit. The founders broke them almost at once. What the rules produced is the sixtieth birthday party in Vinterberg's The Celebration, where the eldest son stands up to make a speech and says the thing nobody has said, and von Trier's The Idiots, where a commune of clever young people go out in public pretending to be disabled to see what it does to everyone watching. Handheld, lit by whatever is in the room, the films get closer to a face than a crew normally can.

Distinguish from Mumblecore shares the low-budget, naturalistic aesthetic but emerged organically from American independent cinema without a manifesto. Italian Neorealism is the historical ancestor — location shooting, non-professionals, social engagement — but operated with celluloid discipline, not digital rawness.