CPH:DOX '23

At the heart of Damsgård & Klovborg’s film about the ISIS kidnapping of Danish photographer Daniel Rye is an incendiary interview, conducted by journalist Sean Langan, with two of the British kidnappers, infamously known as the Beatles. “As an interviewer, he makes just about every mistake in the handbook, but still he somehow succeeds in getting something to happen in that room that’s hard to explain,” says Klovborg.

Welcome to Funky Town, the hippest club in Chengdu, China, and the centre of the city’s thriving underground party scene. The documentary came about after Yihao, one of director Mullinkosson’s most flamboyant friends, discovered he was a filmmaker. “He asked when I would film him. I said how about Saturday night?” the director tells BDE.

Cutting edge science, the prehistoric past and the rituals of indigenous folk collide in Dane Dodds’ delicate, compassionate and strikingly assembled documentary film !AITSA, set against the stunning backdrop of The Karoo, a vast desert area in South Africa the size of Germany.

The Special Eurimages Award was given to the Ukrainian Red Zone by Iryna Tsilyk, while the 10th Eurimages Co-production Development Award was won by Only on Earth by Robin Petré. Both are valued at €20,000. The Unifrance Doc Award, valued at €5900 in subtitling services and Unifrance membership, went to Cuba & Alaska by Yegor Troyanovsky.

The Chilean presence at CPH:DOX may have been relatively low key in 2023 but Chiledoc Deputy Director Flor Rubina is hopeful that this will increase significantly in coming years after she observed the public and industry-facing activities at CPH this week. Three Chilean films screened this year, including Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory.     

An amazing portrait of a homophobic Polish Catholic activist who changes his heart and his mind to become an active member of the LGBTQIA+ community. Director Hanka Nobis took a big gamble by following young Antek, a member of the Polish Catholic Brotherhood, for a long time, suspecting he was different from the others, but what happened next is the stuff clickbait is made of.

If you’ve ever wondered whether or not plants have feelings, then take a look at Light Needs, world-premiering at CPH:DOX and offering sublime insight into the secret life of plants, those who care for them and the special relationship they share. It is a film packed with love, humour and a sensuous attention to detail.

An engagingly playful Los Angeles-based hybrid feature doc which is rendered even more striking by its astute use of sign language and subtitles by a director who is, herself, d/Deaf. The film dwells upon a series of mysterious tuba thefts and therefore silence and sound are key components in O’Daniel’s unique and impactful experience.

Emily Norling’s Megaheartz, about how she and her friends struggle with love and life, has a big heart, but its chaotic depiction of chaotic lives leaves the viewer with little to hold on to.

As we see within each tableau vivant of Anna Hints’ Sundance-winning doc, the Estonian smoke sauna is a place for physical, emotional and psychological cleansing, for revelation and for wonderful storytelling. “That is the magic. You go into this smoke sauna and you don't care…it’s the space [where] somebody tells and somebody listens,” the director tells BDE.