Peter and Chris, two young American friends in their late 20s, go from South Dakota to California on a scooter, and as they travel across the American landscape they see their country through different eyes, ranging from Peter's cynically nihilistic point of view, to Chris' high expectations and romantic notions of the United States.
With his first Dogma-95 film director Lars von Trier opens up a completely new film platform. With a mix of home-video and documentary styles the film tells the story of a group of young people who have decided to get to know their “inner-idiots” and thus not only facing and breaking their outer appearance but also their inner.
Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.
Kresten, newly wed, is on the threshold of a great career success in his father-in-law´s company. But when the death of his own father takes him back to his poverty-stricken childhood home, far out in the country, his career plans fall apart. For one thing he has to deal with his loveable, backward brother, who is now all alone; for another, he meets a stunning woman who comes to the farm as a housekeeper, in disguise of her real profession as a call-girl.
Katrine is to be married. Her fiancé is gorgeous, their appartment is luxurious and her future in-laws are wealthy. Katrine only has one problem: she sometimes finds it difficult to tell the truth, and this sends her on a round-about jaunt with an old friend, Thomsen, who has just barged in unannounced from Kenya and who wants to return a favour and help Katrine with her wedding preparations. A labyrinthal excursion takes place. Tomorrow is another day, the wedding day!
A documentary crew enters a drama school in Brussels to examine the controversial method of one of its teachers: the Open Door method. The great atmosphere soon disappear as ill-feelings settle.
Stranded in the heat of a barren African desert, eleven bus-passengers shelter in the remnants of an abandoned town. As rescue grows more remote by the day and anxiety deepens, an idea emerges: why not stage a play. However the choice of King Lear only manages to plunge this disparate group of travelers into turmoil as they struggle to overcome both nature's wrath and their own morality.
A French woman falls in love with a Yugoslavian man, not realizing that he is an illegal immigrant.
Fabián, a magician from Buenos Aires, saves his money from weddings, birthdays, and bar mitzvahs, and uses a hidden camera to document a week-long trip to the Falkland Islands where he has a patriotic plan: to impregnate a British woman. If 500 Argies do this annually, the islands will soon be overrun with children belonging to both cultures.
Chetzemoka's Curse is about a young, twenty-something woman, Maya (Maya Berthoud), who is haunted by the memory of her first love and her subsequent betrayal. She still feels the pain, works to exorcise it as she wiles away her life as a maid in a small town hotel. But her road to health seems to include passing the bad karma along. She encourages an older married man to run off with her and betray his wife and kids. Betrayal is in the air. Even an itinerant street musician sings about his infidelity. Bottom line, he says, is that he betrayed himself.
Two stories run on parallel lines in a nocturnal Rome. Marcello is an easygoing sixty-five-year-old film producer trying to convince a beautiful actress to accept a part in a film. The other protagonist is a group of petty criminals and illegal immigrants who pass the night stealing, taking drugs, having sex and drinking. Marcello talks about his experience working with Fellini and Mastroianni during the wonderful years of DOLCE VITA; this strongly contrasts the city experienced by the immigrants.
Gypo is the story of a working class family in Margate, Kent, a town where immigrants have become the focus of most of the public's discontent. The film tells the story of the a couple of weeks in this family's life, beginning when a young Czech girl, Tash, comes to visit. The film is made in the Dogme95 tradition, so no costumes, no lighting, no props or sets, which gives the film a gritty texture appropriate to the story.
Story of a video camera that goes on an adventure around the world. It's stolen, pawned, bought and generally goes in and out of bedrooms, shoots commercials, follows the life of an average ordinary video camera that goes around the planet until it winds up in the hands of filmmaker Richard Martini. This film has been designated at Dogma #15 by the Danish film group Dogme95.
The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a shocking secret.
Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.
Anna, a young theology graduate, starts work as a prison chaplain. She becomes especially concerned about one inmate, Kate, regarded as difficult and withdrawn, but whom the other inmates credit with mysterious healing powers.
Cristiano is unemployed, desperate and hasn't any hope to help his autistic brother Lucio. One day Cristiano take the decision to submit Lucio as candidate to participate at a TV show called "Operazione Speranza" (Operation Hope) as the final solution to sort out their problems. But the day Cristiano is taking the preliminary interview, Lucio get lost. Lucio in his ramble meet Flaviana and starts an immediate friendship.
Film director Mikel de Garay and the attractive young producer Andrea Bilbao, who hide an obscure past, are going to make a film based on the latest novel by Rosendo Carballo, a successful writer with homosexual tendencies who has put an end to his marriage of convenience and is sharing his life with a young gay man. Rosendo is going to meet with Mikel and Andrea, and three friends of the writer, Fernando, Beatriz and Nacho, join the group. Conflict arises unexpectedly when the characters start to play a dangerous game: digging around in their respective pasts in the hope that this will produce a catharsis.
Undiagnosed, untreated and generally untethered schizophrenic Julien lives with his pregnant younger sister Pearl, anorexic would-be wrestler brother Chris, sympathetic grandmother, and severely depressed German father.
Kira and Mads try to work out their marriage, after Kira has been two years in a mental institution, but is she really ready for the real world?