Scandinavia’s largest documentary CPH:DOX (November 6-16, 2014) is expanding outside its own boundaries for its 11th edition, making festival films available outside Copenhagen and encouraging audience engagement during and after the festival.

For the first time ever, the festival’s opening film 1989 by Anders Østergaard will screen simultaneously at DR Concert Hall on November 5 and in more than 50 cities around Europe to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago. Furthermore, the festival has expanded regionally by screening 17 festival films in the Øresund region (October 21-November 13).

Another novelty this year is the series ‘Mega-trends’ focusing on some of the world’s most topical trends in the field of economics, politics and technology. “We’ve been working on the programme for the last year and a half,” says festival director Tine Fischer (pictured). “From now on, each year we will select mega-trends with the help of NGOs, universities, think tanks etc that will be conceptualised into workshops and live debates to engage with the audience during and after the festival.”

For Fischer, an increasing number of documentaries meant ‘to be seen, discussed but also to create social and political change’ are on the market, in other words documentaries moving between traditional filmmaking, investigative journalism and activism. Many of those titles are reunited in the F:ACT programme represented at the festival and parallel Forum industry event. One of the strong international voices of investigative journalism, US filmmaker/journalist Louise Poitras will be guest of honour, in charge of her own her curated programme. Her latest film Citizenfour on whistleblower Edward Snowden will screen at the festival’s main CPH:DOX competition programme, along with 13 other films such as Denmark’s 1989, Democrats by Camilla Nielsson, The Look of Silence by Joshua Oppenheimer and the Swedish/Danish Stranded in Canton by Måns Månsson.

Half of the films in the main competition are hybrid titles, reflecting another trend in doc filmmaking. “When we launched the festival some 11 years ago, hybrid films were rare. Today they are almost common ground and it’s part of the established doc practises to intervene or work between fiction and non-fiction,” notes Fischer. Sixteen Nordic films will screen at the NORDIX:DOX competition such as the Danish entries The Circus Dynasty by Anders Riis-Hansen and The Many Who Saved the World by Peter Anthony both supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond. 

The parallel Forum industry event held from November 12-13 will present new projects from two of Denmark's most established producers; Signe Byrge (On Screen off Record) and Sigrid Dyekjær (Bugs) as well as the latest works by Margreth Olin (Childhood) and Janus Metz (Between Two Worlds). For the full programme check: www.CPH:DOX.dk