02/03/2022 - This year’s edition will host 200 new films, 76 world premieres and 59 competition titles split across six international competitions, with a special focus on Ukraine and Russia

The full line-up of films has been announced for the 2022 edition of CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. This year’s gathering, unspooling in a hybrid format from 23 March-4 April, will showcase 200 new films, 76 world premieres and 59 competition titles split across six international competitions. Moreover, several titles focusing on Ukraine and Russia will be premiering in CPH:DOX’s main competition, DOX:AWARD, and a selection of movies will be made available for streaming in Denmark from 1-10 April.

“Right now, our thoughts are first and foremost with the people in Ukraine, a sovereign European state unlawfully invaded by an autocratic regime. In Kyiv, the great festival Docudays UA was supposed to happen around the same time as CPH:DOX. That is no longer possible. In light of this, it feels like an incredible privilege to be able to gather the international documentary community as well as the audience in Denmark around a cultural manifestation such as CPH:DOX. A documentary film festival is not only a celebration of cinema; it is also an opportunity to critically reflect on reality, to engage in democratic dialogue and to discuss how our views of the world have consequences – sometimes fatal consequences. With CPH:DOX 2022, we strive to create a space for these hugely important discussions,” said Niklas Engstrøm, artistic director of CPH:DOX.

The festival will be exploring three important tracks in its programme: Art, Science and Society. During the event, audiences in Copenhagen will be able to experience these tracks in three new venues around the city – each with a dedicated pop-up cinema where film screenings will be accompanied by debates, talks, concerts, performances and a number of special events.

This year’s DOX:AWARD section will include 12 titles. Six of these are world premieres, five are international premieres and one is a European premiere. Among the European titles are Lars Ostenfeld’s “grand, cinematic adventure on the Greenland ice sheet”, Into the Ice [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Denmark/Germany); Nataša Urban’s The Eclipse [+see also:
film review
interview: Nataša Urban
film profile] (Norway), wherein an exiled film artist turns her analogue film camera on her family in the former Yugoslavia to map how a dark past remains embedded in the present; Andreas Koefoed’s “subtle, sensitive coming-of-age film about a very unusual young woman”, The Fall [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Denmark); Susanne Regina Meures’ Girl Gang [+see also:
film review
interview: Susanne Regina Meures
film profile] (Switzerland), “a contemporary fairy tale about a 14-year-old influencer and her biggest fan”; and Victoria Fiore’s Hide and Seek [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Victoria Fiore
film profile] (UK/Italy), revolving around three generations of a single family who live on the fringes of the law in Naples. Three titles are part of the festival’s focus on Ukraine and Russia – namely, Antoine Cattin’s Holidays (Switzerland), described as “a lively mosaic of impressions from life in the vast, inscrutable country in the East [Russia]”; Danile Roher’s “timely, urgent, nerve-wracking” docu-thriller Navalny (USA); and Olha Zhurba’s Outside [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Ukraine/Denmark/Netherlands), which follows the 13-year-old lad who became “the poster boy of the Ukrainian revolution”.

Meanwhile, the NEW:VISION AWARD will host 16 titles in total, including 11 world, three international and two European premieres. Furthermore, the F:ACT AWARD, the strand dedicated to films perched between documentary filmmaking, investigative journalism and activism, will showcase ten titles and six world premieres, whilst the NORDIC:DOX AWARD will present 12 Nordic films and nine world premieres. The line-up is rounded off by the NEXT:WAVE AWARD hopefuls, consisting of ten new films and seven world premieres.

The festival’s full programme is available here.