CPH:DOX 2017 /The Festival

It’s spring, 1st of March, from where I sit in Copenhagen it’s cloudy and windy but milder. I have the window open. It’s spring and the CPH:DOX festival announced its program at noon today. The festival has moved to March and the festival main venue has moved. CPH:DOX will have what they call a Festival Palace at the Charlottenborg on Kongens Nytorv next to the Royal Theatre (the classic, not the new at the harbour). Here will be cinemas, exhibitions, a five day conference, concerts and parties, café and restaurant and much much more. The headquarter in other words. In one of the central squares of Copenhagen.

The website is up and running, the programme newspaper can be downloaded, I guess there will be banners round the city if they are not there yet… and there will be screenings outside Copenhagen, more than 100 it is written in the press material.

More than 200 films with 75 world premieres.

Dates: March 16-26.

Ambition – to be ”more than a festival”, quote from the website’s ”About Us”:

”During the eleven days of the festival, CPH:DOX also presents concerts, art exhibitions, five whole days of professional seminars, a screening market, and the international financing and co-production event CPH:FORUM, as well as the film production program CPH:LAB and much more.

CPH:DOX wants to be the best film festival in and for the world. We insist on freeing the transformative potential of art and documentary films, that is the potential to have a direct impact on the social context. The appealing form of the documentary films allows for the communication of complicated problems in an intimate, reflective and profound manner. And no matter whether the topic is political, philosophical, experimental or focused on a narrow section of the world, documentary film expands and questions the viewer’s conception of the world. But CPH:DOX doesn’t just show documentary films – we anchor them in social context through debates, artist talks, events and masterclasses. In the hope of creating real social transformation, CPH:DOX establishes a space for reflection, dialogue and opinion across the population, and with that making sure that the films and the problems they pose stay with the viewers long after they leave the cinema.”

A manifesto!

https://cphdox.dk/en/

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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