CPH:DOX '22

TV dramas have long perpetuated the stereotype of Naples as a Mecca for gangsters. In her Dox:Award Competition film, director Victoria Fiore wanted to show another side of the city, and so follows the Neopolitan kids, especially the lovable but mischievous Entoni. “Entoni’s story just shone through,” the director tells BDE. “I fell in love with his energy. He had so much of it. We got along straight away.”

British filmmaker Ben Rivers and French musician and artist Félicia Atkinson are yet to meet in person - but audiences at CPH:DOX last week enjoyed an unusual collaboration between the duo. Atkinson provided new voice-over and musical accompaniments for two of Rivers’ films, Urth (2016) and Look Then Below (2019). The soundtracks were performed ‘live.’ Rivers was too busy with other work to travel to Copenhagen but he made time to speak to Business Doc Europe.

This isn’t the first time that Danish filmmaker Mistrati has explored the dirty secrets of the chocolate industry. His previous films include The Dark Side Of Chocolate (2010) and Shady Chocolate (2012). “The price for a chocolate bar is unnaturally low. It doesn’t make any sense. A chocolate bar should cost around 4 or 5 quid, not 50p. It’s unrealistic…unless you don’t pay the farmer and the farmer’s employees,” the director tells BDE of his F:act Award Comp selection.

Doc Alliance, the creative union of seven major European documentary festivals, has unveiled the shortlist of 14 nominees for the 2022 Doc Alliance Awards, to be handed out during the Doc Day lunch in Cannes on May 24. Seven films will compete for the awards in each of the Best Feature Film and Best Short Film categories.

76 world premieres and 59 competition titles among the 200 new films offered up within 6 international competitions. “CPH:DOX is ready to present the full film programme with a diverse selection of films of artistic quality and contemporary relevance,” says the fest. Several films focusing on Ukraine and Russia will premiere in CPH:DOX’s main competition, Dox:Award.

The backdrop might well be the hard streets of Ukraine, but the themes of Outside are universal ones – the story of a young man growing up on the streets, lost within an uncaring system and struggling to break free from a cycle of petty criminality and rebellion…a lost soul for sure, but also one that director Olha Zhurba has come to worry about and care for.

A dreamlike documentary that weaves together the timeless, historical and experimental qualities of shooting on 16mm black-and-white film in its observation of mountain shepherds and their flock. The combined effect of image and sound is a mix of direct, ethnographic observation and dreamlike, manipulated reflection.

A Taste of Whale is definitely not for the faint-hearted with copious amounts of bloodshed and much animal cruelty on display. At the same time it paints a very nuanced picture of what is perceived everywhere as a barbaric tradition: the Grind – the killing of the pilot whales by the Faroese people.

When she speaks to Business Doc Europe, US filmmaker Sierra Pettengill is in Zagreb for this week’s screenings of her documentary Riotsville, USA at ZagrebDox. She has come to town straight from CPH:DOX in Copenhagen. The festival dates are racking up for the film (sold by Dogwoof) which premiered in Sundance but is also due to screen at Hot Docs, at the Seattle International FF and in New Directors New Films in New York.

If future generations want to know how the world’s scientific community responded to coronavirus, one of their first starting points is likely to be US director David France’s How To Survive A Pandemic, sold by Dogwoof. The film, screening in CPH: Science, tells the story of how scientists across the world raced to develop vaccines against a virus which has been killing millions. France explains his doc to BDE.