A violently honest shortdoc featuring home video footage taken by the director’s late father, a man who had a few things to hide. Although the editing is very rough and has a distinct “home made” feel to it, the effect of the film is nonetheless haunting.

IMDB (awaiting 5 votes) / Official site
Directed by: Marina Lutz

Short doc winner of CPH:DOX 2009. “Three Pilots” is a beautiful doc about flying and the people who enjoy it. Visually the film is quite poetic, but it didn’t really get to me.

7 mins.
Directed by: Philip Leaman

Can be seen January 6th in Denmark! More info on DOX:BIO.

“Into Eternity” is like no other documentary you have ever seen. It’s a film that questions how we see the world and offers a peak into the far, far future. If “2001″ were a documentary, this would be it.

When I saw the trailer and read the description of “Into Eternity” in the CPH:DOX 2009 program it didn’t interest me at all. In fact, I only saw the film because the one I actually wanted to see got cancelled – and boy am I glad it did! I like high production value in documentaries and this one has probably the highest I have ever seen. There was a Q&A with Michael Madsen, the modest and soft-spoken director, after the first screening. He described how the team had painstakingly considered every aspect of the style they were aiming for. The result is a truly cinematic experience; sound, music, cinematography and content work together beautifully.

The film is already receiving high praise in the Danish press and I’m sure it will find a long life as a cult film.

IMDB (awaiting 5 votes) / official site / 85 minutes
Directed by: Michael Madsen

1. The Invention of Dr. Nakamats
2. Into Eternity
3. Kim
4. Karima
5. Objectified
6. Shock Doctrine
7. Fra Haifa til Nørrebro
8. Art&Copy
9. Videocracy
10. The Cove
11. The Great Contemporary Art Bubble
12. The Film I’m No Longer Talking About
13. Garapa

The biggest experience this year was, by far, “Into Eternity“. It’s a film that is still haunting me and I can’t wait to see it again. I think it has a huge underground potential, but realistically it won’t be met. This is truly sad, because the film has the power to make us dream and that’s no small feat. I wish the director and ATMO all the best in promoting the film.

I had really been looking forward to Dr. Nakamats and Art&Copy. Nakamats had a sky-high production value (at least in the realm of documentaries), but it didn’t quite grip me as much as I’d thought. Art&Copy was very interesting, but the story arch didn’t really satisfy. But I’m still glad I saw both films.

“Objectified” was in line with “Helvetica” – if you like one, you will like the other. “Garapa” was anything but entertaining and I’ve certainly taken my wife on better Friday night dates – but it’s an important movie that strikes close to home (I lived in Brazil for 4 years). “The Great Contemporary Art Bubble” was probably the most enlightening film and it was fun to watch. “The Cove” was fun and entertaining and achieves its objective. “Shock Doctrine” is the sort of political doc that I thought directors stopped making after Bush left the White House – but it’s also a doc with a powerful style. “The Film I’m No Longer Talking About” is the sort of film any film-maker will appreciate. Its also a film with a lot of heart. “Karima” was the only doc I walked out on – there are limits to how much anal abuse I can watch.

“Kim” and “Fra Haifa til Nørrebro” are two powerful, small and personal dox – yet two more examples of how high the production value of Danish documentaries are. Especially the sound work was fantastic – both the music and the soundscapes.

I didn’t see the winning film, “Trash Humpers”, but judging from the trailers and reviews, it’s a totally bizarre choice. Is it even a documentary? Not even the director seems to think it is. I know little of the criteria to win, but if CPH:DOX is interested in getting people to the big and small screens to see documentaries, I think it was a shitty choice. More commentary about the Trash Humpers choice over at The Documentary Blog.

But regardless of my personal taste, I want to wish all the directors congratulations with their films. Making dox will push a man to his limit and just completing one is extraordinary.

Eventually 1-minute reviews of all films will be online. Hope to see you next year at CPH:DOX 2010!

“Karima”, by Clarisse Hahn, is a film about a young, French dominatrix. We see Karima having dinner, laughing with her family, talking with friends, and – surprise! – fist-fucking her domestic slave and then pissing in his mouth. You don’t just “kinda see”. You see. I didn’t expect that in a cinema full of people. 10 mins. into the film the first people started leaving.

But when I left half-way through the film, it wasn’t because I couldn’t take the sexually explicit material anymore, because there wasn’t much more of that. It was because the narrative wasn’t very strong and the production was weak. One thing I am wondering though: how did they get away with all the scenes where The Cure’s music was playing in the background?

Directed by: Clarisse Hahn

A beautiful film about the Danish member of the resistance during World War II, Kim Malthe-Bruun. The film is remarkable in that it portrays a lover, more than a fighter. In Denmark Kim is relatively well-known as his letters have been studied in school since the war. His letters and diary entries are full or wisdom, love and poetry and in the context of the war, it becomes quite powerful.

The director was present at the screening and made some very interesting remarks about narrator voice. He instructed his actor be completely devoid of emotion, “as if he were reading a newspaper”.

Official site
Directed by: Morten Meldgaard

But Naomi is an intelligent (and gorgeous, which helps) woman who masters the art of discourse and this film gave me even more motivation to read her books. However, I can’t help feel that she was in the doc for name-value. For the first hour she played a minimal role.

The central idea of the film, as I understood it, is that shocking events lowers the public’s guard and allows new (economic) policies to be applied.
Ok, my 1 minute is up. If liked the directors or any anit-Bush dox, you’ll probably like this one. If not, you’ll at least appreciate the editing and the research which went into creating it.

Here’s a short film Naomi Klein made. I presume it’s what inspired the directors to make “The Shock Doctrine”.

IMDB: 7 of 10 (65 votes) / more info / 90 minutes
Directed by: Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom

The film is maybe a little too long, but offers any film-maker both inspiration and discouragement. You’ve been warned.

Related dox: Overnight (2003), The Burden of Dreams, Hearts of Darkness.

IMDB: 6.1 (23 votes) /Official site / 72 minutes
Directed by: Martin Degrell and Jesper Ganslandt

Art&Copy

Off Ways

The Invention of Dr. Nakamats

Objectified

Videocracy

Food Inc.

Turn it Loose

Erasing David

Paul Virilio – Thinking Speed

The Windmill Movie

The Cove

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Fikelstein

Garapa (by the director of Tropa de Elite)

And… Shadow Play: The Making of Anyon Corbijn, Drømme i København, Kim.

I’ll be attending quite a few films. Send me tweet if you want to join.