Ever since the whole Dogme-concept captured the world attention at the Cannes Film Festival, the interest in Danish Cinema has increased enormously. Thomas Vinterberg's Festen has won several international awards as did The Idiots directed by the Danish enfant terrible Lars Von Trier. At the Berlin Film Festival 1999 Dogme-director Søren Kragh-Jacobsen picked up the Grand Jury Prize for the third Dogme-film, Mifune. Even the harshest critics cannot ignore the attention and the impact that the Danish Dogme-films have enjoyed during the last couple of year.

The Dogme-films can be seen as a refreshing reaction to a recent tendency in World Cinema, where special effects seem to play the leading roles. The Dogme-directors all focus on simple yet original and very human stories - not unlike the French new wave-directors in the 60es. In Cannes Thomas Vinterberg even cited the New Wave-directors - among them Francois Truffaut (400 Blows etc.) as an important source of inspiration. But the Dogme-films also have a new and rather wonderful devil-may-care-attitude about them that people of all nationalities can respond to.

On the technical level most reviewers have remarked on the use of the handheld camera, which certainly adds a sense of reality and truth to the films. The audiences become part of the film. Whether you are taking part in Vinterberg's Celebration, or running around like Von Trier's The Idiots, you feel like you are actually there. But also the dynamic editing plays an important part and adds a lively contemporary quality to the films.

But even now when Dogme-films are creating a global debate, it is important to remember, that this is far from the first time that Danish Cinema has made its mark internationally. In the silent era Denmark was already one of the key countries in European Cinema thanks to directors like Carl Th. Dreyer (Day of Wrath & The President) and stars like Asta Nielsen (The Abyss) and the world's first comic duo, Long & Short (People of the North Sea). The oldest film studio in the world, Nordisk Film, can actually be found in Denmark and the Nordisk Film logo (featuring a real-life polar bear) did infact inspire MGM to do their famous lion-logo...