Trine Dyrholm, Christian Slater, Dree Hemingway are set to star in Jesper Just’s Incidents of Intimacy, the second production in Zentropa’s new collection of Dogma25 pictures.
The initiative rebooting the Danish company’s 1995 Dogma Manifesto was first announced during the Cannes Film Festival last May.
Dyrholm will star as a woman who is unable to acknowledge and access her own feelings and constructs intimacy by stealing objects from people instead of getting close to them. After having emotional reactions through the objects, she files them in an archive of intimacy in her cupboard.
When a triangular relationship appears, it destabilizes her system, causing emotions to detach from their origins and circulate independently. Gradually, the objects take on a life of their own and the control she’s been holding on to slips through her fingers. Her controlled world is turned into a site of emotional horror as a new reality dawns, created and dominated by autonomous feelings.
Danish actors Johannes Lilleøre (Unit One), Julie Agnete Vang (The Commune), Laura Drasbæk (The Killing) and Michael Moritzen (The Legacy) are also in the cast.
Dyrholm’s casting in Incidents of Intimacy marks a homecoming for the Danish actress who was part of the ensemble cast in Thomas Vinterberg’s Cannes Jury Prize winner The Celebration, the first film to be made under the original manifesto.
Now one of Denmark’s best known actresses, her credits since include Susanne Bier’s Academy Award-winning drama In A Better World, Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair, May el-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts and in recent years in Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With The Needle and Jeanette Nordahl’s Beginnings.
Dyrholm will star opposite The Name of the Rose break out and Mr. Robot Golden Globe winning star Slater, who also has Zentropa connections having appeared in a supporting role in Lars von Trier’s 2013 erotic drama Nymphomaniac. Hemingway is known for her roles in Sean Baker’s Starlet, FX limited series Love Story and While We’re Young.
Incidents of Intimacy is the first feature film of Just, an acclaimed artist whose work has been shown worldwide and can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Tate Modern and Helsinki’s Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma among many more.
He has just completed the script in collaboration with Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen, who was also the script writer behind Isabella Eklöf’s Kalak and Malene Choi’s The Quiet Migration.
Dogma25 is an initiative of recent Venice Golden Lion winner May el-Toukhy (Woman Unknown), who will be one of the five directors making films under its rules alongside directors Milad Alami, Annika Berg, Eklöf and Just.
The five filmmakers have united in an artistic collective based on a shared manifesto and a new vow of chastity comprising ten new dogmas [check them out below] to protect the artistic integrity of feature film and create space for uncompromising cinematic storytelling. All five feature films will be produced by Zentropa.
The Danish Dogma25 projects are financed in a collaboration between Zentropa, DR, and Nordisk Film Distribution, with the addition of Netflix in the Nordics, constituting the core financing necessary to realize all five projects.
Additionally, Incidents of Intimacy is produced with support from the Danish Film Institute, The Eastern Denmark Film Fund and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.
The Dogma25 films are distributed by Nordisk Film Distribution and subsequently on Netflix in the Nordics and DR. TrustNordisk handles international sales.
The Rules of the Dogma25 ‘Vow of Chastity’
1. The script must be original and handwritten by the director. We compel ourselves to write the script by hand in order to nurture the kind of intuition that flows most freely from the dream, channelled through the hand onto the paper.
2. At least half the film must be without dialogue. We insist on a cinematic approach to filmmaking, because we believe in visual storytelling and have faith in the audience.
3. The internet is off limits in all creative processes. We commit to produce the films relying on real people within our physical reality – rather than in a digital one infused with algorithms.
4. We’ll only accept funding with no content altering conditions attached. We assume responsibility for keeping budgets down so the team retains final say in all artistic decisions.
5. No more than 10 people behind the camera. We commit to working in close collaborations to build trust and strengthen our shared vision.
6. The film must be shot where the narrative takes place. Film as an art form becomes artificial and generic when we portray a location in a false light.
7. We’re not allowed to use make-up or manipulate faces and bodies unless it’s part of the narrative. Just as we strive to maintain the authenticity of the location, we also want to portray the human body without a filter. We celebrate it – warts and all.
8. Everything relating to the film’s production must be rented, borrowed, found, or used. We commit to making films using objects that already exist and renounce the ahistorical and self-destructive culture of consumerism.
9. The film must be made in no more than one year. We abstain from any lengthy processes that stand in the way of creative flow.
10. Create the film as if it were your last.