Interviews

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.

Dutch-Japanese filmmaker Kiriko Mechanicus discusses the mutual roots of obsession between her and a shooter who killed 8 Asian women within Atlanta massage parlours. “One reason why I wanted to make this film was, of course, that I wanted to show the world as a form of manifestation that me as a person, but also me as a representative of Asian women, can be more than just this submissive woman that I've been for a very large part of my life,” she says.

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.

In James Dawson’s new feature doc, selected for Thessaloniki Doc Fest International Competition, two Devon farmers work their farms in radically different ways. One is hugely into conservation, while the other opts for heavy industrial processes. And they’re both called Derek. Ask director Dawson where he stands on the core dilemma his film addresses and he answers without hesitation. “We produce this abundance of food, which is brilliant, but at the same time, we've destroyed biodiversity and nature along the way," he tells BDE.

Set to world-premiere in the International Competition of the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, Soap Fever explores how the American daytime series The Bold and the Beautiful became an unlikely cultural lifeline in Finland during the severe economic downturn of the early 1990s. “It was this total collision of a miserable societal atmosphere and these glamorous American stars who suddenly appeared in the middle of it,” director Inka Achté explains the unexpected appeal of the US soap.

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.”

Premiering in the Newcomers Competition of this year’s Thessaloniki Docfest, Tirrenica explores the social landscape surrounding one of Italy’s most emblematic infrastructure projects: the Salerno–Reggio Calabria highway. Moving between present-day observational footage and archival material, the film follows lives unfolding along the motorway while reflecting on the promises of development and modernity historically attached to the road. The director ta;lks to BDE.

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.”

Witch Club Satan are a fast-emerging mega-force in the world of Norwegian “black metal” - and when they play, they make a very big din. In her new film Hex (sold by CAT&Docs), cinematographer-turned-director Maja Holand follows the band’s founders, Victoria, Nikoline, and Johann, as they try to gate crash a male-dominated world. “My approach was that I stayed with them, often slept in the same house - and they sometimes just called me the fourth witch!” the director tells BDE of the rapport she shared with the band.

Before she retired, Lisbeth Grägg confided to director Sylvelin Måkestad that when she retired, she planned to travel to Finland and retrieve a long-lost revolver with which her father, fighting for the Finnish army, unsuccessfully attempted suicide after a clash with the Russians during the Second World War. “That was inspiring to me, an elderly woman setting off on a secret mission like this. I thought this is something I can’t miss. I have to apply for money and do a film about it,” Måkestad tells BDE.