Exactly one year after a group of up-and-coming Danish directors launched the Dogma 25 cinema movement in Cannes, the first Dogma 25 film, Mr. Nawashi from Isabella Eklöf, has begun filming.
The love story follows Katarina (newcomer Tanya Holm Andersen), an “ambitious and talented singer with an appetite for life but little self-discipline” who meets the mysterious Mr. Nawashi (The Last Resort actor Esben Smed) online and begins her initiation into a the world of BDSM. But, according to an official summary, “what begins as flirtation and attraction soon tips into obsession and dependence.”
Currently in production, Mr. Nawashi is set for a planned 2027 theatrical release.
Eklöf’s debut feature, Holiday, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018, her 2023 drama Kalak screened at San Sebastian, winning the Special Jury Prize. She has also directed several episodes of the HBO series Industry and Sky Atlantic series The Death of Bunny Munroe, and was a co-writer on Ali Abbasi’s Oscar-nominated feature Border (2018).
Eklöf, together with directors May el-Toukhy, Milad Alami, Annika Berg, and Jesper Just launched Dogma 25 at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Inspired by the indie cinema movement Dogma 95, spearheaded by Danish directors Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, the filmmakers pledged to make movies under a strict “vow of chastity” comprising ten new dogmas to protect the artistic integrity from the pressures of the modern film industry.
Among the Dogma 25 requirements that all scripts must be “original and handwritten,” that at least half the film must be dialogue-free, that all shooting has to be in real-world locations using found or resused materials, and the internet cannot be used in the creative process.
All five Dogma 25 projects are being financed in a collaboration between Zentropa, DR, and Scandinavian distributor Nordisk Film Distribution, who will release all of the finished films locally. Netflix has picked up streaming rights for the Dogma 25 projects in the Nordics.
Mr. Nawashi also received financing from the Danish and Swedish Film Institute. TrustNordisk are handling international sales for the Dogma 25 slate.
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