CPH:DOX – International Documentary Film Festival
Various locations, in Greater Cph
Starts Thu Nov 7, ends Nov 17
Tickets: 80kr per screening, festival pass: 10 films for 500kr, concessions for students and seniors for films before 17:00
www.cphdox.dk
From November 7 for ten days, our cinemas will offer a window to the world by playing host to Scandinavia’s largest documentary festival. Originally founded in 2003, CPH:DOX is the non-fiction sister of CPH:PIX, and every year it brings an increasingly exciting programme of works by established names and fresh talents, featuring seminars, master-classes, production labs and a screening market.
With increased theatrical releases – and thanks to the internet, more distribution methods than ever before – documentary film is enjoying a golden era. Television remains a good home for many subjects, but others demand to be seen at the cinema, and CPH:DOX is a rare opportunity for doing just that, with amazing films that might not otherwise reach you. Last year Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn’s exceptional work The Act of Killing premiered here and took home the festival’s DOX:AWARD. It went on to enjoy international success, easily topping my cinema favourites of 2012.
CPH:DOX celebrates unique storytelling in all its diversity, not only bringing a slice of current and classic filmmaking, but also radio/televisual broadcasting, art exhibitions and live musical collaborations from all over the world. The festival concludes with an awards ceremony to celebrate the winning works and reward the filmmakers with cash contributions to fund their next projects. Here follows is a small selection from a programme of over 200 films that are screening – see the festival’s website for a detailed programme of events and screenings.
Inside Out
Dir: Alastair Siddons, UK, 2013, 70 mins; Grand Teatret, Tue Nov 12, 19:00; Park Bio, Sat Nov 16, 21:30
Inside Out chronicles the efforts of French street artist and social activist JR to mobilise a global creative project that would act as a form of artistic intervention. So far 135,000 people from 98 countries have participated by submitting photographs of themselves, which JR then enlarges on a huge printer and mails back to the participants to be put up in their communities. The power of a giant human face covering buildings all over the world is only the beginning of his mission.
Manakamana
Dir: Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, Nepal, 2013, 113 mins; Empire Bio, Sun Nov 10, 15:00; Grand Teatret, Wed Nov 13, 19:00; Cinemateket, Sun Nov 17, 21:30
Shot entirely in just eleven takes, this meditative film has been causing quite a stir over the last three months. The takes are ten minutes each, a running time that corresponds to both a single reel of 16mm film and the journey time of the cable car that takes a varied group of people (from young rockers to old ladies) to a temple tucked away in the Nepalese mountains. Each trip is surprising for different reasons, and the whole of it is unforgettable.
Atlas
Dir: Antoine d’Agata, Fra, 2013, 76 mins; Grand Teatret, Tue Nov 12, 21:40 & Fri Nov 15, 14:20; Empire Bio, Sat Nov 16, 22:30
Likely to be divisive for its lack of compromise, Atlas is French photographer d’Agata’s studied representation of a human hell. Chronicling his own experiences as well as those of others, he shows us a dark place where drug abuse, animalism and excess conspire to leave the body a blackened shadowy shell of what it once was. A tough journey, no doubt, but one that is exquisitely photographed and will stay with you for a long time.
Pine Ridge
Dir: Anna Eborn, Den, 2013; 76 mins; Falkoner Biografen, Fri Nov 8, 21:45; Cinemateket, Wed Nov 13, 20:30; Empire Bio, Sun Nov 17, 17.30
This film offers a fascinating look into the lives of young Native Americans stuck in Pine Ridge Reserve – a rundown place that many of them would love to leave, but cannot. Living in South Dakota and yet outside of American society, they live poorly, degraded as exhibits for tourists who deem their way of life exotic.
