CPH:DOX – Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world, will take place online between April 21–May 5, and from May 6 to May 12, it will screen a selection of the films on the big screens in Copenhagen.

This year, the festival programme includes a total of 177 international documentaries, of which 47 world premieres, 9 international premieres and 6 European premieres, as well as interactive art, panel discussions, live debates and talks with artists, experts and opinion makers.

The global problems that humanity has been facing for years now are becoming even more visible and urgent in a world affected by the Covid-19 crisis. The overall theme of the festival, RESET!, brings into discussion the topics of democracy, economy, representation and climate, some of the most significant structural crises that our planet is going through today. The festival’s international conference, CPH:CONFERENCE, invites the audience to participate in discussions that focus on finding new solutions to these situations. The role of the arts and of the film and media industry in our society and how the two could help make a change for the better is also a major item on the agenda.

“How can audiovisual storytelling help to reclaim the digital public sphere, challenging disinformation, documenting injustices, and lifting up new and marginalized voices? What role is storytellers and artists playing in challenging platform capitalism, corporate surveillance and tech monopolies?”, says Tine Fischer, director of CPH:DOX.

Taiwan’s visionary digital minister Audrey Tang, fake news expert and Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, founder of Fridays for Future Uganda Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, economic commentator Grace Blakeley and the award-winning producer Ted Hope are some of the participants in the CPH:Conference, which will take place April 26-30.

Film programme

The festival competition programme includes the following sections: Dox:Award, New:Vision Award, F:act Award, Nordic:Dox Award, Next:Wave Award and Politiken Danish:Dox Award.

Romania is represented in the festival by Alina Manolache’s documentary Lost Kids on the Beach.

Among the highlights of this year’s edition are the special programmes Sound & Vision, dedicated to the music industry and its legends such as Tina Turner and David Byrne, and Science, which explores the encounter between cinema, science and society, by bringing pressing matters into discussion and trying to come with solutions for them.

Guests stars

The audiences will have the opportunity this year to virtually attend live conversations with special guests, focusing on the role of art and activism in facilitating change in contemporary society. The talk series An Evening With will be broadcasted live on Facebook and available throughout the festival on the CPH:DOX’ platform. Among the invited guests are David Byrne, Marina Abramović, curator Tine Colstrup and three of the members of the Hong Kong Movement: directors Han Yan and Ip Kar Man, as well as protagonist Anson Yip from the documentary film When a City Rises. The live programme also includes dialogues between human rights activist, lawyer and one of the world’s first female imams, Seyran Ates, and Danish renowned writer Sara Omar, as well as between iconic philosopher and cultural critic, Slavoj Žižek and film director Jani Sever, whose documentary film Antigone, How Dare We! is presented within the festival.

CPH:DOX takes place between April 21–May 12, 2021. For more festival info and details about the special events, visit the official website.

Melissa Antonescu

Writer, photographer and videographer. For Films in Frame she writes news about the latest happenings in the film world and brings to the readers' attention the productions that can be seen at the cinema. When she's not writing articles, she's photographing people in a small studio or searching for new cake recipes.