It’s now been 30 years since Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg launched the Dogme 95 movement, featuring a set of stripped-down filmmaking rules to put power back in the hands of directors. While films such as Festen, The Idiots, and even Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy emerged, it eventually died out about a decade on, but now a group of Danish directors have launched their own manifesto with Dogma 25.

As formed by May el-Thouky (Queen of Hearts), Milad Alami (The Charmer), Isabella Eklöf (Holiday), Annika Berg (Hurricane), and Jesper Just, it comes at an opportune time as the industry undergoes many challenges. “We celebrate Dogma 95, the filmmakers who came before us, and those who will come after. We stand together to defend artistic freedom as a shield against pointlessness and powerlessness. Dogma 25 is a rescue mission and a cultural uprising,” the filmmakers said. “In a world where formulaic films based...