Danish cinema has never been at the forefront of international film-making, through no fault of its own. Those Danes make a good film, but nothing groundbreaking that warranted worldwide attention. That is until Thomas Vineberg’s came crashing onto the scene with Fasten in 1998, setting fire to the phenomena that became Dogme95.

Although it set out to break the conventions of mainstream cinema, the Dogme95 movement began with its own set of rules. The Vow of Chastity written in 1995 by Lars Von Trier and Vineberg listed 10 commandments that any Dogma film had to stick to: ‘A Dogma film couldn’t use any props or sets, fixed cameras (only handheld camera), special effects (whether audio or visual), and, above all else, couldn’t conform to any existing film genre.’ A movement more akin to the historical significance of Film Noir, in that there are a specific few films allowed to be classified as Dogme95. The whole thing was over before it started, and the world calmed down.

Now we all have a reason to get excited again about the Scandinavian country renown for legalised drugs, schnapps and the second largest rock concert in the world. This year’s Denmark Nu section gives us the latest work from Nicolas Winding Rein, whose unashamed Pusher I, II & III trilogy is only upstaged by the documentary on his painful journey to produce the Pusher sequels.

Country specific cinema can sometimes go awry, creating stereotypes difficult to avoid, but the latest offerings coming out of Denmark are making waves. Denmark Nu is the new Denmark, and it’s worth a long look.