CPH: DOX 2025

Natural Contacts (2024)

Mark Fingerhut Matthew D Gantt Bridget DeFranco Peter Burr

<p>Every component of the imposed malware was designed for a slow collective drama unfolding around a quietly rotting corpse. As the piece progresses, the once verdant landscape transforms into a barren, snow laden field, only later to become overgrowth. Seasonal birds, appearing from offscreen, come to rest on the branches while flies disappear behind the movement of the cursor. As days become nights and the seasons pass, remnants of the landscape&rsquo;s prior states reappear as wind-swept images strewn across the desktop.</p>

One to One: John & Yoko

Kevin Macdonald Sam Rice-Edwards

<p>ONE TO ONE, set in New York in 1972, explores John &amp; Yoko&rsquo;s musical, personal, artistic, social, and political world set against the backdrop of a turbulent era in American history. At the core of the film is the One to One Charity Concert for Special Needs Children, John Lennon&rsquo;s only full length concert between the final Beatles concert in 1966 and his death. The film includes a wealth of previously unseen Lennon archives including personal phone calls, home movies filmed by John &amp; Yoko, as well as restored and remastered footage from the One to One Concert with remixed audio overseen by Sean Ono Lennon.</p>

Pauline Black: A 2-Tone Story

Jane Mingay

<p>Pauline Black is a multi-talented figure who dedicated four decades to music, while supporting and campaigning for racial equality. Featuring excellent archive and contemporary footage, the film charts Black&rsquo;s history &ndash; from her adopted background to the racism, sexism and hostility she faced on her journey through British life and the entertainment industry. It&rsquo;s engrossing, essential viewing.</p>

Pavements (2024)

Alex Ross Perry

<p>It is a documentary/fiction hybrid film about the American indie band Pavement, incorporating scripted scenes with documentary footage of the band and a musical stage play consisting of songs from their discography.</p>

Rave (2024)

Lukasz Ronduda Dawid Nickel

<p>After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, techno suddenly became huge in Poland. The world was open and all kinds of new cultural waves rolled in across the borders. Electronic techno culture was one of them. Inspired by the DIY ethos of the punk scene, ravers started organizing their own parties. When the scene grew big enough, clubs like Ekwador Club opened with white gloves, loud whistles and BPMs turned way up.</p>

Rule of Stone (2024)

Danae Elon

<p>In Israel, there is a law that in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Stone must be used when constructing new buildings. On the surface, the stone ensures that the city retains its aesthetic character. But in effect, law, stone and architecture have been used as a silent but effective method to demarcate Palestinian neighbourhoods since Israel conquered East Jerusalem in 1967. The goal was to make a division of Jerusalem physically impossible. In a sober and incisive analysis, &lsquo;Rule of Stone&rsquo; maps the aesthetic, ideological and strategic role of architecture. Through archival footage and interviews with the architects and urban planners responsible for the design of modern Jerusalem and the local residents suffering under the law, it reveals how urban space, design and aesthetics are also instruments of demographic and political control.</p>

The Alluvials (2024)

Alice Bucknell

<p>The Alluvials is a four-level video game set in a near-future version of Los Angeles. Players take on the agency of conventionally non-playable and nonhuman characters, including wild fire, the LA River, a Yucca Moth and Joshua Tree, and a pack of wolves.</p>

The Caring Machine (2024)

Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm

<p>In the artwork The Caring Machine, we are invited to imagine that we are lying on our deathbeds, our loving digital companion &#39;sitting&#39; by our side, watching over us, and speaking to us in a soothing human voice.</p>

The Forest that Breathes Us

Jennifer Abbott

<p>The Forest That Breathes Us invites participants to step beyond human-centered perception into the sensory worlds of a Douglas fir, a coyote, and a humpback whale within the interconnected ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest, traditional territory of the Kwakwaka&rsquo;wakw People. Participants encounter a forest breathing with memory and communication, a coyote perceiving time through scent, and a whale navigating the vastness of the ocean through vibration and sound. This VR experience reveals the agency and collaboration inherent in nature&rsquo;s processes&mdash;a wake-up call and act of reconciliation, inviting us to recognize other-than-human beings as kin, collaborators, and co-creators of life on Earth.</p>

The Tender Revolution (2024)

Annelie Boros

<p>Ever since my friend took her own life, one question has stayed with me: Is there a possible world in which she would have liked to live? A world full of care and tenderness? The film meets four different people who have never met, but who are all fighting for exactly that: for a tender revolution.</p>

You Need This (2025)

Ryan Andrej Lough

<p>As you read this, millions of products are being bought and soon thrown away. We are filling our shopping carts, thinking less and longing for more. Our basic needs have become cogs in a profit machine where we work and consume until we die. But who really controls the system and can we break free? &lsquo;You Need This&rsquo; explores how consumerism and hyper-capitalism shape our lives, society and planet.</p>

Ein er ei eiga eining (A stranger in the world)

Sturla Pilskog

<p>A filmmaker and his son with autism. A composer and his musical work inspired by the slow processes of dripstone caves. Two parallel love stories.</p>

Aggregate (2024)

Distraction

<p>If an artificial intelligence were to learn to desire, what path would it take to bridge the space between intimacies? Aggregate is a collective process requiring a large number of players to take turns and experience reinforcement learning (punishment/reward) as they progress through the uncharted territory of machine learning and queer desire.</p>

Animality (2025)

Weiwei Ai

<p>Ai Weiwei examines our relationship with animals, from China and Egypt to the Danish mink farms. At times violent, always thought-provoking - and above all, a mirror image of ourselves.</p>

Antidote (2024)

James Jones

<p>With extraordinary access and urgent storytelling, Antidote anchors its timely narrative on whistleblowers and activists who have worked to uncover Vladimir Putin&rsquo;s deadly regime &mdash; and are now facing dangerous and fatal consequences for their courageous actions.</p>

Climate in Therapy (2025)

Nathan Grossman

<p>Open a bottle of climate anxiety. Pour the contents into a hot pot under high pressure. Then add a teaspoon of horror, a tablespoon of anger and three drops of deep disappointment in humanity. Let it all come to a boil while you invite a group of scientific researchers who don&rsquo;t know each other, but know all about the fact that the end of the world is near. Let the scientists spice up the dish with their most suppressed feelings about climate change and the future of the planet. And last but not least, bring in a professional group therapist who isn&rsquo;t afraid of an awkward silence to get them to sit in a circle and share their feelings with each other.</p>

Cosmic Balance (2025)

Andreas Johnsen

<p>The young Indonesian musician Anggi was given away as an infant and grew up among musicians practicing the traditional music phenomenon Reak. Reak is practiced in West Java and is a spiritual cultural form where both musicians and audiences go into trance and are possessed by the spirits of their ancestors.</p>

Disco's Revenge

Omar Majeed Peter Mishara

<p>Born underground and taken on a wild ride into the mainstream, disco was co-opted, exploited and then tossed aside to the fringes. This is the true story of disco music and the communities who hustled for their freedom on the dance floor.</p>

Ellis Park

Justin Kurzel

<p>Warren Ellis has lived many lives, ultimately emerging from trauma and drug abuse to embark on a journey of personal healing. Through his success as a musician, working with Nick Cave and as a member of both the Bad Seeds and Dirty Three, he co-founded a wildlife sanctuary that provides animals damaged by human captivity with a new lease on life. Lovingly shot and candidly told, this is a humbling story of growth, redemption and care.</p>

Facing War (2025)

Tommy Gulliksen

<p>Jens Stoltenberg had planned to step down after nine years in the powerful position of NATO Secretary General. The 65-year-old politician had packed his bags to go home to his wife in Norway, as he had promised her. But then Joe Biden called and asked him to stay another year. Because in a troubled world, an experienced leader is needed more than ever. With unprecedented access, we follow Jens Stoltenberg through his last year as Secretary General of NATO. And there&rsquo;s plenty to keep him busy, as he has promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj that the alliance will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes. But the fear of the war in Ukraine spreading to the rest of Europe is causing tensions to rise between the 32 allied countries. Stoltenberg will need all his diplomatic skills to keep the member states together. Fortunately, the Norwegian politician has mastered the difficult art of compromise and understands the importance of a well-timed pat on the back. And when it comes to making deals with the likes of Recep Erdoğan and Viktor Orb&aacute;n, the little details that can make all the difference.</p>

Girlfriend Experience (2024)

Ugo Arsac

<p>Girlfriend Experience is an interactive video installation that EXPLORES emotional distress in our hyper-connected society.</p>

Girls & Gods (2025)

Verena Soltiz Arash T. Riahi

<p>Can feminism and religion coexist? Inna Shevchenko of the Ukrainian FEMEN collective seeks answers to a difficult question in candid conversations with priests, imams, rabbis and other activists.</p>

Googoosh – Made of Fire

Niloufar Taghizadeh

<p>On stage since she was a toddler, Googoosh has been an icon of Iranian pop culture since the 1970s. Her progressive style and raw singing talent attracted worldwide acclaim and saw her performing alongside the likes of Tina Turner and Ray Charles. But the star&acute;s career came to an abrupt halt after the Islamic Revolution, which banned women from singing in public. Googoosh was placed under house arrest, where she remained for the next two decades. Niloufar Taghizadeh&acute;s documentary, which includes interviews with the charismatic singer (now in her seventies, but still performing and advocating for women and girls) and arresting archival footage, offers both a loving portrait of a national icon and a fascinating historical and cultural record of Iran.</p>

Huk, The Jaguaress (2025)

Violeta Ayala

<p>Deep in the Amazon, flames devour ancient trees, smoke chokes sacred spaces, and millennia of wisdom crumble to human greed. From this chaos rises Huk, a two-million-year-old jaguaress spirit, an apex hunter who has lived countless lives, always female, always fierce guardian of the delicate balance of her world. Now, as her home faces its greatest peril, Huk transcends her physical form, emerging as a post-human AI deity, a fusion of ancient wisdom and neo-Andean futurism. Through her robotic gaze, she reveals the Amazon&rsquo;s plight, inviting you not to watch, but to act, to step into her story and reshape the future of our shared world.</p>

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley

Amy Berg

<p>Rising musician Jeff Buckley had only released one album when he died suddenly in 1997. Now, never-before-seen footage, exclusive voice messages, and accounts from those closest to him offer a portrait of the captivating singer.</p>