In these films all external trappings in the form of artificial lighting, music, make-up, costumes, huge budgets and special effects have been stripped away, leaving the story and the cast’s performances to speak for themselves. Thomas Vinterberg’s award-winning The Party was the first Dogma film, and this was followed by Lars von Trier’s The Idiots and Søren Kragh Jacobsen’s Silver Bear award-winning Mifune. Lone Scherfig’s Italian for Beginners also received the Silver Bear at Berlin in 2001.

However, the Danish cinema revival of recent years is not due to the Dogma films alone. The Danish cinema scene is bubbling with a talent base that includes film directors, producers, script writers, set designers, photographers, actors, editors and more – all within a wide variety of genres. The big names are Bille August (House of the Spirits, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, etc.) and Gabriel Axel (Babette’s Feast), and the new names are Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher), Anders Thomas Jensen (Ernst and the Light). Danish children’s films are of high quality and have a long tradition of winning awards. 25% of Danish film industry grants go to children’s films. A Danish children’s film festival is held every year in Odense.

The Danish cinema history is a long one. One of the world’s oldest film companies, Nordisk Film, is Danish and has produced a long line of Danish films in the same studios ever since 1906. Visitors can go on guided tours of the Nordisk Film studios in Valby near Copenhagen. Today new production companies are mushrooming, with Zentropa Film (Lars von Trier’s Golden Palm-winner Dancer in the Dark) and Nimbus Film (The Party and Mifune) as two of the most prominent.

Box offices in Denmark are thriving, and, in summer, visitors have the chance to see Danish films with English subtitles at special screenings, e.g. at the major, open-air film cavalcades. Every year the cities of Copenhagen, Odense, Århus and Aalborg host Night Film Festivals with late-night movie marathons for night owls. The Danish Film Institute, the public promoter and sponsor of the Danish film and cinema industry, operates from the hub of its activities in Filmhuset in Copenhagen.