Dogmatrix 95

DOGMATRIX 95 is a collective of adult film directors founded in Copenhagen in spring 1995. DOGMATRIX 95 has the expressed goal of countering “certain tendencies” in adult cinema today.

DOGMATRIX 95 is a desperate action!

In 1980 enough was enough! The porn movie was dead and called for resurrection. The goal was correct but the means were not! The new wave of video cameras proved to be a ripple that washed ashore and turned to a tsunami.

Slogans of amateurism and freedom created works for a while, but no changes. The wave was up for grabs, like the actors themselves. The wave was never stronger than the men behind the women behind it. The anti-professional cinema itself became professional, because the foundations upon which its Practice were based was the bourgeois perception of human sexuality. The Amateur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby ... false! To DOGMATRIX 95 cinema is not unprofessional!

Today a technological storm is raging, the result of which will be the ultimate democratisation of adult cinema. For the first time, anyone can make adult movies. But the more accessible the medium becomes, the more important the avant-garde. It is no accident that the phrase “avant-garde” has military connotations; everybody loves a man in uniform. Discipline is the answer, even for those who do not enjoy the practice ... we must put our films into uniform, because the individual film will be decadent by definition!

DOGMATRIX 95 counters the individual film by the principle of presenting an indisputable set of rules known as THE VOW OF SMUTTINESS.

In 1980 enough was enough! The movie had been cosmeticised to death, they said; yet since then the use of cosmetics, especially in surgery, has exploded.

The “supreme” task of the decadent film-makers is to turn on the audience. Is that what we are so proud of? Is that what the “100 years” have brought us? Illusions via which physical sensations can be communicated? ... Predictability (the money shot) has become the golden calf around which we dance. (Or, golden calves if the producer is willing to spring for some … body paint.) Having the characters’ inner lives justify the rutting is too complicated, and not “high art”. As never before, the superficial action and the superficial movie are receiving all the praise. The result is barren. An illusion of pathos and an illusion of sexuality.

To DOGMATRIX 95 the movie is not illusion!

Today a technological storm is raging of which the result is the elevation of cosmetic surgery to God. By using new technology anyone at any time can wash the last grains of truth away in the deadly embrace of physical sensation. The illusions are everything the movie can hide behind.

DOGMATRIX 95 counters the film of illusion by the presentation of an indisputable set of rules known as THE VOW OF SMUTTINESS.

I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGMATRIX 95:

1. Shooting must be done on location. Toys and costumes must be brought in (if a particular toy is necessary for the story, it must be paid for by the production).

2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Fake moaning and orgasms must not be used unless they occur while the scene is being shot.)

3. The camera must not be hand-held. Any movement or mobility attainable on a tripod is permitted. (The film must arouse the viewer, not make the viewer physically ill.)

4. The film must be in colour. Special effects are expensive to do well, cheesy when not done well and, either way, distract from the action. That is not acceptable.

5. Optical work and filters are mandatory.

6. The film must only contain superficial action. (Self-reflection, philosophy, real human emotions, etc. must not occur.)

7. Temporal and geographical alienation are encouraged. (That is to say that the film takes place wherever colourful period costumes and exotic locations can distract from the absence of meaningful plot or character motivation.)

8. Genre movies are absolutely necessary.

9. The film format must be Sony Beta.

10. The director must be credited with an obviously false pseudonym.

Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal vision! I am not an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a “work”, as I regard the money shot as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the naked truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations.

Thus I make my VOW OF SMUTTINESS