CPH:INDUSTRY, the industry strand of CPH:DOX, theCopenhagen International Documentary Film Festival,is back with a jam-packed program across its CPH:DOX SUMMIT and CPH:CONFERENCE events.
The state of truth, the impact of AI, and the fight to create safe havens for independent voices are among the hot-button issues in focus at this year’s 18th edition. Featured speakers include John Wilson of HBO fame (How to With John Wilson), Irish doc maker Sinéad O’Shea (All About the Money), Poh Si Teng (American Doctor) and Kenya-based Bea Wangondu (Kikuyu Land).
In unveiling the program, Mara Gourd-Mercado, head of industry & training at CPH:DOX, emphasized the goal of creating “a hub for bold conversations,” adding: “We see the CPH:CONFERENCE and CPH:DOX SUMMIT as a moment to come together and reflect on the deep changes and challenges we need to tackle head-on as an industry.” Attendance trends are strong — the fest is expecting roughly 2,000 accredited guests, on par with last year.
It will surprise no one that AI is a recurring theme. “When we look at AI, we say this is here, and it’s not going away, so we need to adapt,” says Gourd-Mercado. “We need to take the bull by the horns and consider how we can actually use this tool to our advantage. How can documentary navigate this huge shift in our industry?”
The approach is deliberately multifaceted. On the practical side, a speculative workshop will prototype a DOX:AI platform built for and by the documentary community. “It’s about shifting the narrative,” Gourd-Mercado explains. “AI is a tool like any other tool, but how can we take that tool and adapt it to our needs?” A separate conference thread examines AI’s effect on truth and perception. “What is AI doing to our perception of truth, and the importance of truth in what we do and what importance will the coming generations give to it?” she asks. “We’re looking at AI on many different levels to build a comprehensive portrait, so that we, as a community and as an industry, can navigate this shift and not be left behind, or not be passively affected by AI.”
The program also tackles how filmmakers can “bypass algorithms and resist censorship” — a concern shaped by conversations with peers from Georgia, Hungary and Iran. “The question is: How do you get to your audience?” says Gourd-Mercado. That thread connects to a broader focus on safe havens for independent voices. “We look at how you can build spaces where it is safe to watch a documentary about your country when you are in a country or a region where it is not safe to watch documentaries,” she says. “How do you build spaces where films and independent media can reach an audience?”
One session, produced in collaboration with the Palestinian Film Institute, will see members of a Palestinian delegation discuss how “diverse cinematic approaches to historic Palestine can heal trauma and act as cultural resistance against erasure.” Gourd-Mercado describes it as an exploration of the future of storytelling for Palestinian filmmakers — those based in Gaza, those in the diaspora, those born elsewhere but shaped by their identity. “We were also talking about what type of documentary is needed to tell their stories and to renew the vocabulary and the cinematographic language around it.”
John Wilson will be a featured speaker at
Courtesy of HBO Max
Her team’s idea was to look at it in different ways. “One is a very concrete way. For example, we have a speculative workshop to build a DOX:AI for and by the documentary community,” she says. “We launched with a newsletter asking our community for input on this platform. What do you think is important for an AI that would serve the doc community? It’s about shifting the narrative. AI is a tool like any other tool, but how can we take that tool and adapt it to our needs? The idea is to fiddle with a prototype and see what that looks like.”
The Copenhagen industry program also wants to help filmmakers “bypass algorithms and resist censorship,” Gourd-Mercado said in unveiling this year’s lineup. “This stems from a lot of conversations we have had, including with our peers from countries like Georgia, Hungary and Iran, about government control and different stakeholders’ control over algorithms. The question is: How do you get to your audience?”
That corresponds with Copenhagen’s focus on safe havens for independent voices. “We look at how you can build spaces where it is safe to watch a documentary about your country when you are in a country or a region where it is not safe to watch documentaries,” says Gourd-Mercado. “How do you build spaces where films and independent media can reach an audience?”
One Copenhagen industry event this year, entitled “Updated Reflections on Contemporary Palestinian Documentary Filmmaking,” will also see members of the Palestinian delegation discuss “how diverse cinematic approaches to historic Palestine can heal trauma and act as cultural resistance against erasure.” Explains Gourd-Mercado: “It’s a collaboration with the Palestinian Film Institute to showcase the know-how, the depth and the different types of Palestinian documentary filmmaking. The idea was: What is the future of storytelling for Palestinian filmmakers, with all the different elements that influence that? Part of them are based in Gaza at the moment, and you also have the diaspora, displaced filmmakers, you have people who were born in other countries, but are Palestinians. So we wanted to explore how that shapes the view of the world, and how that shapes documentary.”
Opening up debates and new perspectives, and challenging dominant perspectives, is close to the heart of CPH:DOX and its Industry programmers. One session that is sure to do that this year is one exploring “narrative positionality.” Notes the industry events website: “From objectifying gazes, to reductive tropes, racist imagery, transphobic narratives, stigmatization and the hypersexualization of women’s, queer and racialized bodies, image-making powered by creatives from dominant groups, from the global north, colonial perspectives and by cisgender men, has had a complex relationship not only with onscreen subjects, but also with cultural workers and audiences who handle, curate, receive and consume those images.”
Gourd-Mercado points out that the session is closely related to one about “narrative sovereignty.” “About narrative sovereignty, we talk a lot in the context of storytelling by Indigenous filmmakers and stories that are based in Indigenous communities,” she tells THR. “How can such sovereignty be achieved in documentaries? And narrative positionality is something that’s super-important for European filmmakers, because a lot of them go outside of Europe to film, whether it is different communities, different countries, different people. So, it’s really important to ask yourself: What is my positionality here? And how am I transforming the space? How is it different for me to come into this space and film these people, and how am I impacting the people who are being filmed?”
Concludes Gourd-Mercado: “Like with all the other topics, that conversation is something that’s really important. And so we want to provide a platform to debate these issues.”