Six of the best new doc­u­men­taries from CPH:DOX 2019

Ear­ly Spring in Copen­hagen means docs. The Inter­na­tion­al Doc­u­men­tary Film Fes­ti­val is a major pres­ence in the Dan­ish cap­i­tal, with pro­gram­ming that is always top­i­cal and cut­ting edge, its film screen­ings com­bined with debate, music and art events that take place all over the city. While its orig­i­nal mis­sion to explore the bound­aries of the doc­u­men­tary form is as vital as ever, this year CPH:DOX was pos­i­tive­ly burst­ing with issues-based films chart­ing the world’s cur­rent chaos.

Ai Weiwei’s fol­low-up to Human Flow is a short­er, sharp­er and even more mov­ing account of today’s refugee cri­sis. Unlike the ear­li­er, glob­al­ly scaled epic, this focus­es on the grid­lock that took place as Europe closed its bor­ders against thou­sands of refugees from Africa and the Mid­dle East. And instead of an often exhaust­ing array of talk­ing heads and sta­tis­tics, the cam­eras are now square­ly point­ed at the refugees and their often elo­quent­ly expressed, always heart-break­ing sto­ries. A potent reminder that this human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis isn’t going away any time soon.

It’s one of the great mys­ter­ies of recent his­to­ry. Why did Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myan­mar politi­cian who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her non-vio­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy and human rights, then, as her country’s leader, do noth­ing as the mil­i­tary com­mit­ted eth­nic cleans­ing of the Mus­lim minor­i­ty? Dan­ish direc­tor Karen Stokkendahl Poulsen tack­les that ques­tion by chart­ing Myanmar’s com­plex tran­si­tion from dic­ta­tor­ship to democ­ra­cy, in par­tic­u­lar Aung San Suu Kyi’s pact with the dev­il – the mil­i­tary – to ensure she ful­fil her ​‘des­tiny’. With impres­sive access to these shady cor­ri­dors of pow­er, Poulsen reveals a fas­ci­nat­ing, grip­ping, Shake­speare­an tragedy.

Fredrik Gertten’s rous­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into the glob­al hous­ing cri­sis plays like a real-world con­spir­a­cy thriller, with an inspir­ing hero at its heart. She is the UN’s Leilani Farha, who finds whole com­mu­ni­ties from Toron­to to Lon­don, Val­paraiso to Tokyo forced out of their homes – and poten­tial­ly the cities alto­geth­er – by crim­i­nal­ly ris­ing rents. The chief vil­lain of the piece (among many) is a pri­vate equi­ty firm hoover­ing up prop­er­ties the world over as ​‘assets’, with no mind to the peo­ple liv­ing in them. At stake is what Farha sees as a fun­da­men­tal human right to hous­ing. Push won CPH:Dox’s audi­ence award.

With his debut fea­ture, the excit­ing Swedish direc­tor John Skoog imbues a snap­shot of a farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty with an intox­i­cat­ing air of mys­tery, won­der and men­ace. Skoog directs a mix­ture of actors, fam­i­ly mem­bers and locals with such inten­si­ty and shoots with such imag­i­na­tion that the every­day – escap­ing cows, farm machin­ery, alien­at­ed migrant labour­ers and intox­i­cat­ed local teens – is trans­formed into the stuff of taut dra­ma or, at times, even sci­ence fic­tion. There are inti­ma­tions of Anto­nioni, Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr with­in a quite orig­i­nal film­mak­ing sen­si­bil­i­ty. Per­fect CPH hybrid fare, Ridge deserved­ly won the festival’s main DOX: Award.

Twen­tysome­thing self-styled musi­cian, writer, sex work­er, anar­chist, fem­i­nist, recov­er­ing addict and social media junkie Eva Col­lé is of that gen­er­a­tion for whom the hedo­nis­tic rebel refrain could be slight­ly mod­i­fied to ​‘sex and drugs and self­ies’. This diary-doc of the Ital­ian-born Berlin­er might have been trau­mat­ic or tire­some, but is in fact a live­ly, provoca­tive and sur­pris­ing­ly engag­ing account of a smart, warts-and-all young woman for whom iden­ti­ty is a work in progress. Direct­ed by Pia Hel­len­thal and her female-only crew with appro­pri­ate flair and attitude.

A group of Scan­di­na­vian thes­ps joins the ​‘fact or fic­tion’ fun with a film that’s both super-smart exper­i­ment and uproar­i­ous­ly sil­ly naval-gaz­ing com­e­dy. Swedes Anna Odell (who also directs) and Mikael Pers­brandt are sup­pos­ed­ly prep­ping a film about them­selves, in which they will chal­lenge their pub­lic per­sonas and explore their true iden­ti­ties. Six oth­er actors – includ­ing Danes Sophie Gråbøl and Trine Dyrholm – are hired to impro­vise dif­fer­ent ver­sions of the leads, while all are locked inside a giant film stu­dio. To spice things up fur­ther, Odell seems dead set on sleep­ing with every one of her cast. A head-scratch­ing hoot.

For more info on this year’s CPH:DOX vis­it cph​dox​.dk/