20/09/2024 - The curated line-up showcases a wide range of topics, genres and artistic approaches as well as a diverse representation among the storytellers

Founded in 2009, the CPH:LAB has been seeking to advance new visions of what a documentary can be in the digital age while using interactive and immersive technologies to contribute to conversations and spotlight social problems through the artistic view of their creators.

“We are proud of the success that the lab projects have achieved over the years: from invitations to prestigious international film festivals, distribution in cinemas and broadcast on television, to winning critical acclaim and prizes around the world”, says Mara Gourd-Mercado, Head of Industry and Training at the Lab. The Head of Studies Mark Atkin adds further: ‘’At a time when established norms are disintegrating, peoples’ media choices are diversifying in unpredictable ways, and new and powerful tools are disrupting the media landscape at an unprecedented pace, we look to artists to try to make sense of it all.”

The training programme runs as a combination of onsite and online workshops and mentoring sessions spanning from September 2024 to February 2025. The nine projects’ core teams will be working with Atkin, and a slate of internationally renowned mentors to create a prototype that will be presented at CPH:DOX in March 2025 in Copenhagen.

The first residential workshop will take place in October 2024 in Copenhagen and the project creators will work with mentors from different creative industries: the producer and co-founder of the award winning Brooklyn studio iNK Stories Vassiliki Khonsari, the XR producer from Australia Emma Roberts, the award-winning director and producer from the UK Toby Coffey, the Creative Europe expert and Immersive curator at Tribeca Festival Ana Brzezińska, and the XR programmer at the Copenhagen-based VR/AR studio KHORA, Peiman Sichani. 

Here is a full list of selected projects: 

Futuristic Pagan: Exploring the Cosmos – Chipo Mapondera, Sabina Mutsvati (Zimbabwe/UK)
TUNER – Omid Zarei, Anne Jeppesen (France/Denmark)
LE CHIFFRE 2 – Lucien Pin, Thibault Elie, Alex Haugmard (France)
Midsummernight X – Elena Lyubarskaya, David Steiner (France/Germany)
Necessary Tomorrows - The Education of Ursula – Brett Gaylor, Cianna Dawn (Canada)
Cripping Up VR – Meg Fozzard, Amy Crighton (UK)
Dioramas of the Unused – Eszter Várhidi, Francesca Tremulo (Hungary/Italy/Denmark)
Not so far away places – Renato Borrayo Serrano, Julia Vishnevets (Guatemala/Georgia/Germany)
Scratching the Surface – Alexander Mettin, Wiktor Filip Gacparski (Poland/Germany)