The Nicest Men on Earth

Josefine Exner & Sebastian Gerdes / Denmark / 2025 / World Premiere / 77 min

According to the Women, Peace and Security Index, Denmark is the best country in the world to be a woman. Here, women do well in education, build careers and can even demand that their husbands take a share of the maternity leave that has previously fallen exclusively to women. But where does this leave Danish men? And where does it leave the soft men in particular that women are forward-thinking, career-orientated and taking the lead in working life without giving up their position at home? This is a tender, humorous and loving group portrait of a number of the soft and sweet men who are left disorientated with wavering self-esteem and a nagging question: Do the ambitious women even want the men they have overtaken? Through three generations of men – a high school student in love, an unemployed, humanities-educated father and a penniless architect – all based in Aarhus, the film tells the story of losing at home and away, and of feeling like you’re standing still while everyone else whizzes by. A humorous reflection on the new reality of gender and our learnt notions of what it means to be a ‘real man’.