Dogme 95 Collective

The Dogme 95 was an avant guard film movement that started march 13th 1995. It was started by danish directors Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, they created the 'Dogme 95 Manifesto' and the 'Vow of Chastity'. These are rules designed to film makers to use so that they could create film based on the traditional values of story, acting and film. Which meant there was no need for the use of elaborate special effects. They used it as an attempt to give to give power back to the director and away from the studio. Fellow danish Directors Kristian Levring and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen later joined the other directors to form the Dogme 95 Collective. Dogme is the Danish word for Dogma which means to have a strong belief.
The goal of the Dogme collective was to purify filmmaking by refusing to use expensive special effects and post production. This was suppose to help the audeince better engage with the story and concentrate on the actors performance as they are not distracted by overproduction. So Vinterberg and Von Trier designed rules that a Dogme film must conform to:

1. Shooting must done on location and props and sets must not be brought in. If you are required to use a certain prop as it is necessary to the storyline, a location must be chosen where the prop is to be found.   
2. The sound must never be produced, music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.
3. The camera must be hand held. Any movements on immobility attained by the hand held movement is permitted. 
4. The film must not use artificial lighting, natural light only.
5. optical work and filters is forbidden.
6. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. 
7. Genre Movies are not acceptable
8. The film format must be Academy 35mm.
9. The director must not be credited. 

But these rules have been adapted and broken many times over the years of creating Dogme Films. Even Vinterberg confessed that when he filmed Festen be both brought a prop on set and used special lighting, by covering a window during the shooting of one scene.

The First Dogme film made was Vinterberg's 19 critically acclaimed 98 film Festen, which translates to 'The celebration' in english. Von Trier also released his film 'The Idiots' the same year but this was less successful, Since then many films were made by other directors based on the Dogme principles.