In late 2021, CPH:DOX 2022 seemed destined for digital roll-out a third year running. But to the relief of all, the Covid threat abated and Danish cinemas re-opened in January, which meant plans for a hybrid festival presentation of 200 new films, 76 world premieres and 6 international competitions comprising 59 titles could go ahead.
What is it like overseeing a festival a little more akin to those of pre-Covid times? “Surreal,” answers new MD Katrine Kiilgaard who, since joining in 2015, has led and developed the CPH:DOX international industry platform and has acted as the fest’s Deputy Director. But she is also very relieved. “We are happy and grateful that we are indeed able to gather,” she says. “Set against the times that we are in, it feels even more like a privilege that we are able to engage in a film festival.”
Speaking to Business Doc Europe before doors opened on the 20th edition of the Copenhagen doc fest, there was also, of course, pre-event apprehension, with Kiilgaard admitting to being “super nervous” that audiences may not show up at all. “But we have this feeling that people have also been longing for real events in the real world,” she adds as a corrective, before defining the event’s raison d’être.
“[CPH:DOX] is a cultural manifestation where we try to make it much more than a film festival,” she underlines. “It is founded on a belief that it shouldn’t be only for people who go to see film for the sake of film. It’s there to point attention to the big issues of the times that we live in, both to provide a space for people to become wiser and to present some of these huge issues in a deeper way than [we see] in breaking news streams. And also to provide a platform for democratic dialogue… It’s a festival where almost every film has something around it in terms of an event or a debate, and as such it’s something that is, of course, enormous to stage.”
In terms of CPH:DOX boosting its appeal and offer to the industry and public alike, of course it helped when it moved from the ultra-crowded Autumn slot back in 2017, Kiilgaard concedes. “That was to really have a space where we would be able to grow our importance within the documentary cycle of the year. You could say it was a strategic decision to move to the spring.”
In 2022 CPH:DOX offers a strong and varied programme built not only around the six competition sections but also on the core themes of Science, Art and Society with which audiences can engage within three venues around Copenhagen. Each theme has a dedicated pop-up cinema where screenings will be accompanied by debates, talks, concerts, performances and other special events.
The subject of Ukraine and the ‘new perspectives of reality in Russia’ is also very much a central element within the programme, Kiilgaard comments, adding that festival organisers removed one Russian selection after the invasion in late February.
“Of course when the war hit Europe it was on the agenda immediately – how are we and other Danish cultural institutions relating to this? So we came to the conclusion that we would not screen anything that had been supported by the Russian state, but we would indeed include independent artists with voices very critical voices of the autocracy in Russia.”
Daniel Roher’s Navalny, Antoine Cattin’s Holidays and Outside (Olha Zhurba) have all been selected for main competition while the festival will also screen the world premiere of Enrico Parenti and Luca Gennari’s Novorossiya, shot on the Ukrainian eastern fronts of Donetsk and Luhansk where the Russian army and pro-Russian separatists had been waging a war against Ukraine even before the invasion.
The programme also includes the critically acclaimed Sundance winner A House Made of Splinters (Simon Lereng Wilmont) about an orphanage in the eastern part of Ukraine. “It’s an observation with unusual tenderness and human interest. So relevant. It’s what documentary film can really do at its best, placing you as a human being in [another] world and making you understand it at an emotional level in a way that you otherwise wouldn’t… an amazing film,” says Kiilgaard.
Not surprisingly, the 2022 programme is also chock full of Danish and Nordic films, t
opped off by the Nordic:Dox Award competition section comprising 12 new docs from Denmark and its neighbouring countries.
“The Nordic region, especially for documentary, has been one of the strongest in Europe for years and years,” Kiilgaard says of the Scandi component. “It’s standing on the shoulders of years of cultural collaboration built on the affinity in languages and cultures, and ways of doing things [within] well-functioning, welfare democracies.”
“And we do show an immense number of Danish documentaries,” she adds. “We are also here to support the Danish documentary community with whom the festival really grew from the very beginning [in 2003]. You know, the festival was sort of born with a new generation of documentary filmmakers who’ve been supportive of the festival and vice versa. It’s an important aspect of the festival – and Danish documentary filmmakers are doing very well.”
CPH:FORUM (March 29-31) invites top doc talent from around the globe to pitch and persuade on 30 documentary features and series projects that meet ‘at the intersection of non-fiction, fiction, visual art, journalism and science.’ By way of incentive, project teams will have one eye on the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award of €20,000 for the event’s best pitch.
The CPH:Conference will again train the spotlight on contemporary issues of prime concern to doccers, not least how to define the future trajectory of independent in a so-called ‘golden age’ of doc dominated by giant streaming platforms. As importantly the conference will engage in debate that reflects the festival themes of Science, Art and Society. “These are our core values, the three pillars that the festival stands upon, namely creating access to knowledge; the aesthetic and reflective view on the reality that art provides, and last but not least, in terms of society, the need to really engage and act,” Kiilgaard concludes.
