CPH:DOX '23

This year’s CPH:DOX has 17 immersive projects on display, a record number. Casting his eye over the VR selection, CPH:LAB’s Head of Studies Mark Atkin notes an intriguing trend - the use of gaming tools. “I am really conscious that creativity precedes innovation. It is through the experiments of artists such as these that we learn what these tools are really good at. It is their pioneering efforts that willed what will become the metaverse,” he tells BDE.

Maite Alberdi’s feature doc recently won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary and was runner-up for the Berlinale Panorama Audience Award for Doc. Dogwoof partnered with MTV Documentary Films soon after the Sundance premiere to represent the film for international sales. The film screens this week at CPH:DOX.

You won’t find many documentaries that were conceived in more unlikely fashion than Lin Alluna’s Twice Colonized (opening CPH:DOX following its world premiere in Sundance). The director spotted Greenlandic Inuit lawyer and activist Aaju Peter by chance on the streets near the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. They’d never met before yet Peter was to become the subject of a film which would take seven years to complete.

CPH Dox is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2023. “The belief that we can expand on what documentary is and what it can be, that is the red thread that has gone through the history of the festival,” comments Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm. “We want to present all the different formats and colours that documentary comes in.” (But he also wants to party, he tells BDE.)

Danish NGO The Why will release on YouTube 50 carefully selected fact-based docs on themes “directly affecting Russian-speaking citizens,” such as corruption, war, children’s rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ issues and slavery. “It is absolutely crucial that we bring this information to Russian speakers now, as we watch Ukraine still battling for freedom one year on from the invasion,” says WHY CEO Mette Hoffmann Meyer.

For the 20th anniversary of CPH:DOX, 17 immersive projects will be showcased at the INTER:ACTIVE Exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg March 15-26 together with three special performances. Under the theme ‘Breaking the Code’, the selected pieces “collectively question the dominant forces that colonise our imagination in an algorithm-led world and offer immersive perspectives on creativity, representation and social structures in our society.”

With 200 new films, 100+ world premieres. 61 titles across five international competitions, “CPH:DOX is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a powerful film programme full of artistic quality and contemporary relevance,” write organisers. An impressive roster of international guests includes Joan Baez, Oliver Stone, Nathan Fielder, Wim Wenders, Susan Matthews, José Gonzales and Jeremy Deller among many others.

Thirteen films have been selected for this year’s competition. For the first time in the history of the festival, all of them are world premieres. “This year’s selection is full of films deeply rooted in reality, but always with original perspectives, creative ideas and a courage to challenge the status quo of documentary cinema as well as the world at large,” says Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm. CPH:DOX takes place March 15-26 2023.

The Greenland-Denmark doc Twice Colonized by Lin Alluna will open this year's CPH:DOX on March 15. The film will also compete in NEXT:WAVE competition. “Twice Colonized deals with the personal consequences of colonialism and gives us a much-needed new perspective on the colonial history of Denmark, as well as in the rest of the world,” comments CPH:DOX Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm. The festival runs March 15-26.

INTRO:DOX is a new initiative that supports emerging filmmakers, and will kick off this year’s industry programme in Copenhagen. The festival also announced a record number of eleven international delegations attending CPH:INDUSTRY, and has published a preliminary list of decision makers confirmed for CPH:FORUM 2023 taking place March 20-23.