CPH:DOX Sets Full 2024 Lineup With Thematic Focus On Gaza And World Conflicts

CPH: DOX, Copenhagen’s International Documentary Festival, has set the full lineup for its 2024 edition, including 84 world premieres, 32 international premieres, and 9 European premieres. 

Running March 13-24, the festival will feature six competition categories: Dox: Award, F: Act Award, Nordic: Dox Award, Next: Wave Award, New: Vision Award, and the new Human: Rights Award. 

Musician Pete Doherty will attend the festival for a screening of Peter Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin. The event will take place on March 18 at Bremen Theater, when he and the film’s director Katia de Vidas – who became Doherty’s wife over the ten years she followed him with her camera – openly discuss the substance abuse that has shadowed his entire career. After the screening, Doherty will give an acoustic concert. Other high-profile titles include Lana Wilson’s Look Into My Eyes, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s Gaucho Gaucho, Carla Gutierrez’s Frida, Yance Ford’s Power, and Gary Hustwit’s Eno, the definitive documentary about Brian Eno.

The festival has said this year’s lineup has been shaped around the themes of body politic, geopolitics, and territorial disputes, with a particular focus on the conflict in Gaza.

Seven films this year explore what the festival described as “Israel-Palestine conflict,” including three world premieres. Tal Barda’s I Shall Not Hate world premiering in the festival’s new Human Rights Competition. Other films about Israel and Palestine include Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind’s Familiar Phantoms (world premiere) and Jonathan Schaller and Philipp Schaeffer’s Silent Night (world premiere), alongside new films like No Other Land, Bye Bye Tiberias, There was Nothing here before and Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen’s controversial Israelism.

“For CPH: DOX, our primary focus is on tackling the most crucial and pressing contemporary issues. In a world increasingly marked by polarization, we must be willing to challenge our own established truths and engage in meaningful dialogues with those holding different opinions and perspectives,” said Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm.

“Director Max Kestner exemplifies this open and inquisitive spirit in the festival’s opening film ‘Life and Other Problems’, where he embarks on a quest to unravel the meaning and value of life, inspired by the global media scandal surrounding the euthanasia of a giraffe in a Danish Zoo exactly a decade ago. This same ethos of openness and curiosity guides us at CPH:DOX as we navigate the complexities of the world – even during tumultuous times, as we are experiencing at the moment.”

The full CPH:DOX lineup can be viewed here.
The festival runs March 13 – 24.