Dogme 95.. is a collective offilm directors founded in Copenhagen in spring 1995.DOGME 95 has the expressedgoal of countering “certain tendencies” in the cinema today.DOGME 95 is a rescueaction!In 1960 enough was enough!The movie was dead and called for resurrection. The goal was correct but themeans were not! The new wave proved to be a ripple that washed ashore andturned to muck.Slogans of individualismand freedom created works for a while, but no changes. The wave was up forgrabs, like the directors themselves. The wave was never stronger than the menbehind it. The anti-bourgeois cinema itself became bourgeois, because thefoundations upon which its theories were based was the bourgeois perception ofart. The auteur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby... false! To DOGME 95 cinema is notindividual!Today a technologicalstorm is raging, the result of which will be the ultimate democratisation ofthe cinema. For the first time, anyone can make movies. But the more accessiblethe media becomes, the more important the avant-garde, It is no accident thatthe phrase “avant-garde” has military connotations. Discipline is the answer... we must put our films into uniform, because the individual film will bedecadent by definition! DOGME 95 counters theindividual film by the principle of presenting an indisputable set of rulesknown as THE VOW OF CHASTITY.In 1960 enough was enough!The movie had been cosmeticised to death, they said; yet since then the use ofcosmetics has exploded.The “supreme” task of thedecadent film-makers is to fool the audience. Is that what we are so proud of?Is that what the “100 years” have brought us? Illusions via which emotions canbe communicated? ... By the individual artist’s free choice of trickery?Predictability(dramaturgy) has become the golden calf around which we dance. Having thecharacters’ inner lives justify the plot is too complicated, and not “highart”. As never before, the superficial action and the superficial movie arereceiving all the praise.The result is barren. Anillusion of pathos and an illusion of love.To DOGME 95 the movie isnot illusion!Today a technologicalstorm is raging of which the result is the elevation of cosmetics to God. By usingnew technology anyone at any time can wash the last grains of truth away in thedeadly embrace of sensation. The illusions are everything the movie can hidebehind.DOGME 95 counters the filmof illusion by the presentation of an indisputable set of rules known as THEVOW OF CHASTITY.THE VOW OF CHASTITY"I swear to submit tothe following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGME 95:1. Shooting must be done onlocation. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop isnecessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to befound).2. The sound must never beproduced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless itoccurs where the scene is being shot). 3. The camera must behand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (Thefilm must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take placewhere the film takes place). 4. The film must be in colour.Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposurethe scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).5. Optical work and filtersare forbidden. 6. The film must not containsuperficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.) 7. Temporal and geographicalalienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here andnow.) 8. Genre movies are notacceptable. 9. The film format must beAcademy 35 mm. 10. The director must not becredited. Furthermore I swear as adirector to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear torefrain from creating a "work", as I regard the instant as moreimportant than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my charactersand settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost ofany good taste and any aesthetic considerations.Thus I make my VOW OFCHASTITY."