Danish Documentary 2008
Below you will find a couple of brief status articles on Danish documentaries in the year that is about to finish, 2008. Nothing sensational, nothing quality-wise to be compared to ”The Monastery”, the Danish documentary from the last years but that is maybe also too much to ask. Pernille Rose, Phie Ambo, Eva Mulvad, Jeppe Rønde, Max Kestner, the young ones, and Jørgen Leth, Jon Bang Carlsen and Anne Wivel from the older generation did not present new films in 2008.
Anders Østergaard did and won the Joris Ivens Award at idfa for his well crafted and engaged ”Burma-VJ”, and otherwise to be noticed is the editor Nanna Frank Møller’s second directorial performance, ”Let’s Be Together”. Still in the festival circuit are ”Purity Beats Everything” by Jon Bang Carlsen, Michael Noer’s ”Vesterbro”, ”Solange on Love” by Tine Katinka Jensen and ”Everything is Relative” by Mikala Krogh – all films that had their first screening in 2007.
The other issue to be continously raised is the paradoxical situation that Danish documentaries experience a rather creative period at the same time as it is difficult to get to watch them for a general audience. Cph:dox and the Århus Festival screen the films within a festival format, and the former has its dox-on-wheels, and there are other fine initiatives in the big cities, but when it comes to cinema release the success is pretty limited. DVD, online screening and download are of course obvious solutions to reach the audience but the DFI (Danish Film Institute) and the producers of the films, who own the rights, have still not found the solution. What will help, however, is the new strand Dokumania at DR2, that shows documentaries (also the Danish) every tuesday in prime time. Thank you to Mette Hoffmann, who left TV2 and implemented this new slot.
Still: Burma VJ
