March 15 – 26, 2023.
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CPH:DOX 2023 unveils its full film programme

200 new films. More than 100 world premieres. 61 competition titles in five international competitions. CPH:DOX is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a powerful film programme full of artistic quality and contemporary relevance. A big line-up of international guests will take part in the festival, including Joan Baez, Nathan Fielder, Wim Wenders, Susan Matthews, José Gonzales, Jeremy Deller and Rutger Bregman among many others. 

Today, CPH:DOX unveils this year’s film programme, featuring more than 200 new documentaries, more than 100 world premieres – the largest number ever at CPH:DOX – and a big line-up of international filmmakers, artists, experts and opinion makers.

CPH:DOX 2023 takes place from March 15-26, 2023.The festival can be experienced in cinemas in Copenhagen – and in 28 other municipalities across the country simultaneously. As CPH:DOX celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, it will be a festival with a big emphasis on ‘celebration’:

Niklas Engstrøm, Artistic Director of CPH:DOX, said: 
“We’re going to have a blast when we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. When we founded CPH:DOX twenty years ago, we never imagined that two decades later we would be celebrating our birthday as one of the world’s leading documentary festivals. It calls for celebration, and we’re doing so with a firework of a programme with more filmmakers, more world premieres, more events  and, not least, more parties than ever before.”

Competition line-up
The five international competitions that will all be evaluated by international juries at CPH:DOX 2023 are: Dox:Award, New:Vision, F:act Award, Nordic:Dox Award, and Next:Wave Award. The full competition line-up consists of 61 titles and features 46 world premieres, 10 international premieres and 5 European premieres. The selection includes films from both established, international, award-winning directors as well as new voices across the five competitions.

For the second time in the festival’s history, the majority of films in the five international competitions are directed by women. Of the 61 nominated films in this year’s five competition categories, 47 percent of the films are directed by one or more women, 38 percent by a male director, while 10 percent are made by mixed-gender directing teams. Five percent are directed by filmmakers who do not identify as either male or female. 

See the full list of competition titles at the bottom of the page.   

Oscar winners, pop stars and living legends take part in the festival 
Among the special guests that will take part in the festival are film legend Wim Wenders (‘Paris, Texas’, ‘Pina’ and others) and Oscar winners Asif Kapadia (‘Amy’) and Chai Vasarhelyi (‘Free Solo’), who are all coming to Copenhagen to talk about their oeuvre. Afsun Moshiry and Wim Wenders will present the project ‘A Sense of Place’, consisting of a compilation of six short films by Iranian filmmakers, an audio walk in the podcast section, and a live talk.

But it’s not just classic filmmakers who are throwing stardust at CPH:DOX this year. 
The Dutch historian and bestselling author Rutger Bregman is visiting the festival to talk about social cohesion in connection with the world premiere of Fredrik Gertten’s F:Act Award nominee ‘Breaking Social’. Nathan Fielder, the comedian behind the hyped documentary series ‘The Rehearsal’ (HBO), is also coming to Copenhagen during CPH:DOX with a unique live show. The same goes for Swedish superstar José Gonzalez, who will celebrate the world premiere of the portrait film ‘A Tiger in Paradise’ with a talk show and an intimate concert.

Also, 82-year-old folk legend Joan Baez will appear in Copenhagen for the new portrait film ‘Joan Baez: I am a Noise’ to talk about her life as a musician and activist. In addition, Academy Award winning director Oliver Stone will take part in the festival in a live conversation (online) about his new film ’Nuclear Now’ that will be screened during the festival. As part of the festival, the audiences can also experience a brand new solo exhibition by acclaimed, Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller at the festival’s main venue Kunsthal Charlottenborg from March 17.

This year’s focus: Predicting the Past, Rewriting the Future
The 20th anniversary isn’t just about parties and stardust. An anniversary is also an obvious occasion to reflect and look both backwards and forwards, and CPH:DOX does just that in the 2023 programme: This year’s festival theme ‘Predicting the Past, Rewriting the Future’ explores how both the past and the future play a crucial role in our present. It does so with a large, two-part film programme. 

Niklas Engstrøm, Artistic Director of CPH:DOX, said: 
“At this year’s festival, we examine how history has become a weapon used in the great contemporary social debates about post-colonialism, identity politics and other important agendas. On the other hand, we look at scenarios – utopian as well as dystopian – and explore how our ideas about the future are shaping the way we organize society right now.”

See the full list of competition titles: 

NEW:VISION AWARD

16 films (shorts and features) including 14 world premieres, 1 international premieres and 1 European premieres.

  • Bruises (Ginan Seidl & Daniel Ulacia, Germany/Mexico, World Premiere)
  • Drifting Woods (Pia Rönicke, Denmark, World Premiere)
  • The Society of the Spectacle (Roxy Farhat & Göran Hugo Olsson, Sweden, World Premiere)
  • Burial of this Order (Jane Jin Kaisen, Denmark/Germany, World Premiere)
  • Into The Violet Belly (Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Vietnam/Germany, European Premiere)
  • The Secret Garden (Nour Ouayda, Lebanon, World Premiere)
  • Fat to Ashes (Pauline Curnier Jardin, France, World Premiere)
  • Insert Song (Kamil Dossar, Denmark, World Premiere) 
  • Pacific Club (Valentin Noujaïm, France, World Premiere)
  • Nothing Runs Like a Deere (Max Göran, Sweden, World Premiere) 
  • New Centuries are Rare (Coyote, Sweden/Denmark, World Premiere)
  • An Excavation (Maeve Brennan, UK, International Premiere)
  • An Asian Ghost Story (Bo Wang, Hong Kong/Netherlands, World Premiere)
  • The Departing Images (Ana Edwards, Chile/France, World Premiere) 
  • Levitate (Iván Argote, Italy/Spain/France, World Premiere) 
  • A Piece of Work (Deniz Eroglu, Denmark/Turkey, World Premiere)

 


F:ACT AWARD

11 films including 6 world premieres and 3 international premieres, 2 European premieres.

  • 20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov, Ukraine, European Premiere) 
  • Baghdad on Fire (Karrar Al-Azzawi, Iraq/Norway, World Premiere) 
  • Beyond Utopia (Madeleine Gavin, USA, International Premiere)
  • Blix Not Bombs (Greta Stocklassa, Sweden/The Czech Republic/Germany, World Premiere)
  • Breaking Social (Fredrik Gertten, Sweden, World Premiere)
  • Deep Rising (Matthieu Rytz, USA, European Premiere)
  • Phantom Parrot (Kate Stonehill, UK, World Premiere)
  • Praying for Armageddon (Tonje Hessen Schei, Norway, World Premiere)
  • Seven Winters in Tehran (Steffi Niederzoll, Germany/France, International Premiere)
  • The Hostage Takers  (Puk Damsgaard/Søren Klovborg, Denmark, World Premiere)
  • Victim/Suspect (Nancy Schwartzman, USA, International Premiere)

 

NORDIC:DOX AWARD

11 films including 8 world premieres and 3 international premieres.

  • Fighters (Jon Haukeland, Norway, International Premiere)
  • Heartist (Marianna Mørkøre, Beinta á Torkilsheyggi, Faroe Islands, World Premiere)
  • Hypermoon (Mia Engberg, Sweden, International Premiere)
  • Just Before Death (Anne  Regitze Wivel, Denmark, World Premiere)
  • Labor (Tove Pils, Sweden, International Premiere)
  • Lynx Man (Juha Suonpää, Finland, World Premiere)
  • Mrs Hansen & the Bad Companions (Jella Bethmann, Denmark, World Premiere)
  • A Silent Story (Anders Skovbjerg Jepsen, Denmark/Sweden, World Premiere)
  • Soviet Bus Stops (Kristoffer Hegnsvad, Canada/Denmark, World Premiere)
  • The Gamer (Petri Luukkainen/Jesse Jokinen, Finland, World Premiere)
  • Voice (Ane Hjort Guttu, Norway, World Premiere)

 

NEXT:WAVE AWARD

10 films including 5 world premieres, 3 international premieres and 2 European premieres.

  • Megaheartz (Emily Norling, Sweden/Norway, World Premiere)
  • Queendom (Agniia Galdanova, USA, International Premiere)
  • Silent Sun of Russia (Sybilla Tuxen, Denmark, World Premiere)
  • Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Anna Hints, Estonia, European Premiere)
  • The Flag (Joseph Paris, France, World Premiere)
  • The Group Crit (Sille Storihle, Norway, International Premiere)
  • The Last Year of Darkness (Benjamin Mullinkosson, China/USA, World Premiere)
  • The Mountains (Christian Einshøj, Denmark/Norway, World Premiere)
  • The Tuba Thieves (Alison O’Daniel, USA, International Premiere)
  • Twice Colonized (Lin Alluna, Denmark/Greenland/Canada, European Premiere)

CPH:DOX’ main competition (DOX:AWARD) will present 13 world premieres. The full DOX:AWARD competition programme was published on February 15. Read the announcement here. An overview of the nominated films is available here. 

Press photos from all films in the CPH:DOX 2023 programme are available here.

The full programme for CPH:DOX 2023 is now available at cphdox.dk featuring 200 documentary films and more than 100 world premieres. 

Facts about CPH:DOX 2023
Marking the 20th anniversary of the International Documentary Film Festival CPH:DOX, the 2023 edition will offer an outstanding programme of 200 films by both established and emerging filmmakers as well as talks, debates, performances, exhibitions, parties and much more from 15-26 March 2023. In addition, a selection of the official 2023 programme will be available from March 24 – April 2  at the festival’s streaming platform PARA:DOX (geo-blocked to Denmark).

CPH:DOX’ industry events will include the financing and co-production event CPH:FORUM, CPH:CONFERENCE and INTER:ACTIVE symposium. The industry programme runs under the banner “Business as Unusual” between March 19-24. Read more about the key dates and events in the industry programme here. 

Further information:

Sune Blicher, Head of Communications CPH:DOX, +45 3122 2661, *****@cphdox.dk