2018 | 12-channel-video | 5:50min

“Cinematic Corpse” is a twelve-channel video which explores the constructions of cinema by referring to the Dogme 95 manifesto and its founder Lars von Trier with his documentary film “The Five Obstructions”. Between deception and clarification, this piece reflects a long process of questioning to what extent moving image can show the difference between truth and lie by capturing people telling intimate stories.

The danish filmmakers Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier published the Dogme 95 manifesto in March 1995 including ten rules called “The Vow of Chastity” which strive for a pure cinema based on traditional filmmaking. Dogme 95 criticises the excessive use of modern technology by creating technical illusions in cinema which consciously intend to deceive the audience. Moreover, it criticises the role of the film director as individual artist who influences the film with his personal taste, and his “free choice of trickery”.

My piece of work neglects the rules of dogma filming by making use of technical manipulations such as the edit of colour, composition and voice. However, this work thereby induces the viewer to scrutinise the truth of the image by posing philosophical questions. Based on the strategy of Lars von Trier and his discussion with Jørgen Leth in „The Five Obstructions“, I am seeking to reinterpret Leth‘s „The Perfect Human“ by playing with the power of me as a narrator and filmmaker to purposefully influence the audience’s point of view.