CPH:DOX 26

Sabine Lidl’s film about the Norwegian/American author was never going to be a simple retelling of Hustvedt's life story. It would also be about her obsessions and inspirations - figures like Dadaist artist Baroness Elsa and French-American artist Louise Bourgeois. It was also going to be about biology, neurology and psychiatry, her migraines and hyper-sensitivity, and her attritional relationship with her father. “My editor Maxine Goedicke saved me…I had much more to tell, and this was already 110 minutes,” the director tells BDE of the struggle to shoehorn so much material into a feature under two hours. The film screens in the festival's Highlights section.

When the Swedish woman of his dreams fails to return to him after their whirlwind romance, the ‘untouchable’ PK Mahanandia sets out on a treacherous 6000-mile cycle ride across deserts and mountains, and over dangerous borders, to find her. No map, and with only $80 in his pocket. “The story of PK’s cycle journey is an epic adventure filled with magic, but it also really moved me,” says Oscar-winning director Orlando von Einsiedel of his new film, receiving its European premiere in Copenhagen. “His story covers such a rich tapestry of universal themes, from love and destiny to the idea of enduring hope.”

Betsy Hershey and Emma Wall’s film follows the charismatic (if slightly neurotic) US climate activist and stand-up comedian, Michael Greenberg, founder of Climate Defiance, a group which stages imaginative and very noisy protests at public events involving companies and individuals with links to fossil fuels. ‘Our goal is to help people, young people especially, feeling climate anxiety,” Wall tells Business Doc Europe. “For us, it was always about helping them feel a sense of agency and possibility so they can take a role, whatever it is.”

After he read an article about psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and its potential benefits, Swiss director Marcel Wyss decided to become his own guinea pig. “It said that psychedelics can help people deal with deep fears, including the fear of death,” Wyss confides to Business Doc Europe. “After more than twenty years of making documentaries, many people had trusted me with their personal stories. At some point I felt it was my turn to open up and share my own.”

In a society in which expectant young mothers now need to bring their own medicine and equipment to hospital, Caroline, the subject of Nolwenn Hervé’s feature debut The Cord, is part of a network that gives Venezuelan women a chance of a safe pregnancy. “I didn’t have a producer; I didn’t have resources to do it; I didn’t have money but I was sure I would make it,” director Hervé describes both the film’s humble beginnings and her determination to tell Caroline’s story.

As ever, CPH:DOX Industry Head Mara Gourd-Mercado will be overseeing a packed professional programme that includes FORUM, the INTER:ACTIVE Exhibition and CPH:CONFERENCE, and which welcomes the cream of international creative and business talent. What the festival has no say over, however, is the current turmoil across the globe, which means that arranging travel plans for international guests has been somewhat testing. “It is such a fast-moving situation. We don’t know what it is going to look like from one day to another,” Gourd-Mercado tells BDE.

As doors open on CPH:DOX 2026, Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm opens up to BDE on the offer for 2026, the new human rights strand, and the importance of acknowledging the festival’s establishing ethos. “CPH:DOX has always been known for being brave when it comes to the curatorial approach, being curious and trying to explore the boundaries of documentary, and I think that is still a core value,” he underlines.

Pieter-Jan De Pue’s dramatic new documentary Mariinka (sold by Films Boutique and opening CPH:DOX) is the culmination of a full decade of work and has evolved greatly over that period, with one of the featured Zolotko brothers fighting for Russia while another fights for Ukraine. What’s more, the Ukrainian city of Mariinka has been turned into “a land full of rubble…there is nothing that stands there,” De Pue laments to Business Doc Europe.

Elisabeth Rasmussen’s rigorous sophomore documentary follows micrometeorite enthusiast and former jazz musician Jon Larsen who claims to have located real stardust here on Earth, despite extreme scepticism from the scientific establishment. “I want the film to reach people who might be inspired or comforted,” Rasmussen explains her intentions to BDE. “It’s about feeling connected – to each other and to the stars.”

It’s vast and it’s outrageous and, yes, a lot of sex goes on within its walls, but Berlin’s KitKatClub is first and foremost a safe, communal haven for folk whose nocturnal desires and activities differ radically from those of your average Berliner. Director Philipp Fussenegger explains to BDE why he shot his doc in black and white. “It's more like a fairy tale, you know, so we can see [the club] through a different lens as well. It puts away a little bit the realism of this world…A little bit of separation.”