CPH:DOX 2021

The Turkish/Norwegian director talks to Business Doc Europe about the force of nature that is Seyran Ateş, lawyer, author, feminist, female imam and social campaigner and now the subject of a feature doc competing in Nordic:Dox Award Competition, Seyran Ateş: Sex, Revolution & Islam.

Niklas Engstrøm has been appointed Artistic Director of Copenhagen Film Festivals, which includes CPH:DOX, CPH PIX and BUSTER, and will work closely with a new managing director which the festival board is in the process of recruiting. Outgoing Tine Fischer to sit on the board of Copenhagen Film Festivals.

Who’s that knocking at the door? For the subjects featured in A Man and a Camera, Guido Hendrikx’s playful and provocative new documentary, it’s the director himself, arriving on people’s doorsteps uninvited, waiting to see how they will respond. The Dutch docmaker explains more...

At Cannes Docs, French director Jean-Gabriel Périot discussed both his Directors Fortnight selection Returning to Reims (Fragments) and his upcoming project Facing Darkness, both archive-based, during a panel organised by Swiss doc fest Visions du Réel.

Competition line-up comprises 64 titles, featuring 47 world premieres, 9 international premieres and 6 European premieres. 58% of the titles (or 37 films) are directed by one or more women (66% when including films co-directed by female and male directors). Fest runs April 21 – May 2.

At the heart of this absorbing film is the underlying importance of investigative journalism within a world that prefers to suppress whistle-blowers, and favours spin over responsibility.

The Copenhagen docfest will now run April 21 to May 12 and is working on a special film programme to hit the big screen when doors re-open. In addition, David Byrne, Marina Abramovic, Seyran Ates and numerous Danish/international artists, experts and public voices to take part in the festival’s Big Digital Live event.

Did the Nazis change the tuning of music to manipulate the masses? Is this the same pitch we are still using today? This urban legend kicks off a wonderful exploration of the meaning of sounds in human life. A celebration of listening, from the sizzling of champagne to the wailing of ghosts.

Czech director Pavel Borecký’s eco-documentary Living Water is on quite a run. It is showing in Visions du Réel in National Competition; in the CPH:SCIENCE section of CPH:DOX shortly afterward and then in Movies That Matter in the Netherlands in a screening arranged in co-operation with the Dutch Ministry Of Foreign Affairs.

Volkan Üce’s story of two young Turkish men trying to settle into jobs at the all-inclusive Nashira Resort makes for an engaging and insightful documentary that perfectly encapsulates the eternal culture clash between the haves and have-nots.