Wellcome to this year’s CPH:DOX 2024 program

The film programme can be experienced from March 13-24 in cinemas in Copenhagen and in 42 municipalities around Denmark as the festival is continuing its course towards nationwide film distribution. The festival will present 84 world premieres of which 57 are feature-length films – this is the highest number of feature length world premieres in the festival’s selection. 

This year’s programme features six competition categories, judged by an international jury: DOX:AWARD, F:ACT AWARD, NORDIC:DOX AWARD, NEXT:WAVE AWARD, NEW:VISION AWARD, including the newest HUMAN:RIGHTS AWARD. Check out this year’s competition line-up here. 

From March 22-31, a selection of films from the programme will be screened online on the festival’s streaming platform PARA:DOX. 

The 21st edition of CPH:DOX comes at a time when there is an urgent need to highlight art’s ability to facilitate dialogue and encourage (self-)reflection.

“For CPH:DOX, our primary focus is on tackling the most crucial and pressing contemporary issues. In a world increasingly marked by polarization, we must be willing to challenge our own established truths and engage in meaningful dialogues with those holding different opinions and perspectives. Director Max Kestner exemplifies this open and inquisitive spirit in the festival’s opening film ‘Life and Other Problems’, where he embarks on a quest to unravel the meaning and value of life, inspired by the global media scandal surrounding the euthanasia of a giraffe in a Danish Zoo exactly a decade ago. This same ethos of openness and curiosity guides us at CPH:DOX as we navigate the complexities of the world – even during tumultuous times, as we are experiencing at the moment,” says Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm.

Since October 7, 2023, the 75 year long Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been on the headlines, polarizing the debate. The conflict is one of the most pressing of our time, and this year’s festival significantly focuses on it. A total of seven films this year explore the Israel-Palestine conflict in various ways, including three world premieres. Tal Barda’s ‘I Shall Not Hate’, world premiering in the festival’s new Human Rights Competition, features the Nobel Prize nominated Palestinian author and doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish who keeps fighting for peace despite the personal loss of his three daughters in an Israeli attack on Gaza. Other films about Israel and Palestine include Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind’s ‘Familiar Phantoms‘, (world premiere) and Jonathan Schaller & Philipp Schaeffer’s ‘Silent Night’ (world premiere) as well as new films like ‘No Other Land’, ‘Bye Bye Tiberias’, ‘There was Nothing here before’ and Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen’s controversial ‘Israelism’ that has recently been under attack in the US.

‘Conflicted’: Geopolitics and Territorial Disputes

The war in Gaza also forms part of the backdrop for one of this year’s main themes at CPH:DOX, namely the resurgence of geopolitics. Under the headline ‘Conflicted’, we focus on a number of conflicts around the world that deal with culture, identity, and territorial disagreements.

 

In addition to Israel and Palestine, ‘Conflicted’ also zooms in on, among others, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the simmering conflict between China and Taiwan, and the longstanding dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the small enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

 

The intention of ‘Conflicted’ is not to equate the conflicts – each of them is different and has its own unique characteristics. But across the board, they all deal with identity, culture, and territorial disputes, and none of them have easy solutions. However, one of the conflicts has made significant progress towards a peaceful resolution, namely the conflict in Northern Ireland, which is addressed in ‘The Flats’, premiering at CPH:DOX in the main competition.

 

In addition, the festival is introducing a brand new Human Rights Award in partnership with the Danish Institute for Human Rights. There are 10 films nominated for the award, which features 5 world premieres, a single European premiere, and 4 international premieres.

This year’s focus: ‘Body politics’

‘Body Politics’ is this year’s overarching festival theme, and it delves into the body and our understanding of it which plays a crucial role in our times. What do we envision when we think of the body? What characterizes ‘the normal body’, and what happens when we dismantle and deconstruct that notion? These are questions that the programme of CPH:DOX 2024 attempts to address in a specially curated film programme focusing on the body, featuring thematic debates, events and parties, each envisioned and brought to light through the prisms of ART, SCIENCE and SOCIETY.

Further exploring ‘Body Politics’, this year’s signature Social Cinema at Kunsthal Charlottenborg festival center, designed by the Aspekt Office studio and supported by the Bevica Foundation, will open with a special focus on bodily accessibility and inclusivity. 

Body politics is also the focal point of this year’s visual identity. By subjecting three festival-relevant directors to UV Mapping, where 3D objects are unfolded into flat 2D representations, art director Viktor Aabo literally rearranges notions about the boundaries between our physical and digital selves.

Key names in the line-up

Besides addressing the most pressing issues of our times, CPH:DOX will also continue its tradition of bringing to light a special events lineup in relation to its film programme, featuring well known names on an international scale.

Legendary Peter Doherty visits the festival for a special screening of ‘Peter Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin’. The event will take place on March 18 at Bremen Theater, when he and the film’s director Katia de Vidas – who became Doherty’s wife over the ten years she followed him with her camera – openly discuss the substance abuse that has shadowed his entire career. After the screening, Doherty will give an intimate acoustic concert.

Likewise, Canadian electroclash superstar Peaches will be in Copenhagen and talk about the film portrait of her, ‘Teaches of Peaches’.

Some of the hottest titles from the recent Sundance Film Festival will be celebrating their international premiere at CPH:DOX, including Lana Wilson’s ‘Look Into My Eyes’, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s ‘Gaucho Gaucho’, Carla Gutierrez’ ‘Frida’, Yance Ford’s ‘Power’ and Gary Hustwit’s ‘Eno’, the definitive documentary about Brian Eno, one of the world’s greatest pioneers in electronic music. Other music stars portrayed in the programme include Lil Nas X, Carlos Santana, Paul Simon and many others. 

Among the hundreds of filmmakers coming to Copenhagen are numerous award-winning directors, such as the Academy Award-winning Alex Gibney (in town with ‘In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon’) and James Marsh (with Samuel Beckett biopic ‘Dance First’) as well as Shiori Ito (‘Black Box Diaries’), Cannes winner Asmae El Moudir (‘The Mother of All Lies’) and rising star Zia Anger who is premiering the film version of her groundbreaking documentary live performance entitled ‘My First Film’.

In addition to the many world premieres in competition, our out-of-competition world premieres include, among others, Peter Middleton’s ‘Apollo Thirteen: Survival’, Ciaran Cassidy’s ‘Housewife of the Year’ and the film ‘The Stimming Pool’ made by a collective of filmmakers, The Neurocultures Collective, in collaboration with Steven Eastwood.

Special festival exhibitions

Kunsthal Charlottenborg remains CPH:DOX’ designated festival palace, hosting cinemas, various industry activities, exhibitions, happy hours and parties. 

In connection with CPH:DOX, Kunsthal Charlottenborg opens the Thao Nguyen Phan exhibition ‘Reincarnations of Shadows’. And in this first solo exhibition on Scandinavian soil, Phan delves into pressing questions about her homeland’s history in relation to more contemporary issues of environment, colonialism, and historiography.

Additionally, CPH:DOX will give space to its signature INTER:ACTIVE exhibition, curated by head of studies Mark Atkin. INTER:ACTIVE is not just an immersive exhibition, but an exploration of the interplay between creativity and technology which expands the realm of nonfiction as a fixed genre. Through various media such as video games, interactive installations, video art, and AI, a range of artists will explore changes in how we relate to our physical selves and ask how we can burst the frames of our imagined limitations.