Vibeke Vogel

The meaning of life, death and everything else? The possible answers are plenty in Max Kestner's adventurous film, which starts when the death of a giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo goes viral from Hollywood to Chechnya.

A visually exuberant documentary that uses powerful collages edited out of archive footage, home videos, live-streaming material and private documentation to offer a glimpse at what (or who) is at work when an image of our reality is arranged.

Erik was born as a girl but always felt like a boy. As an 18-year-old, he began the process of gender reassignment. This is where ‘Dream Prince’ starts too. Shot over a full 10 years and with no filter. Isolation, bullying and anxiety have followed Erik throughout his life, while he has struggled with recognition from his surroundings and himself. Now he is 27 years old and decides to go on a pilgrimage to the end of the world, the Camino de Finisterrae, to finally find peace with himself. With his beloved girlfriend Martyna as a guardian angel, the journey forces Erik to confront the demons of the past. Jessica Nettelbladt’s trustful portrait tackles a difficult topic with seriousness but also with warmth, humour and love. A film about identity, mental health and healing, which goes beyond Erik’s own story.

This dazzling visual yearbook transports the viewer to a pastoral Danish boarding school where 120 teenagers quickly go from total strangers to chosen family. The students find friendship, romantic love, heartbreak and most importantly, kindness for themselves in their mistakes and first-time experiences. Living on their own, without parents or the comforts of home, they learn intensively and develop self-esteem, confidence and coping mechanisms as a group. Together, they foster the ability to be completely and unselfconsciously themselves in the company of others, which creates a climate of acceptance and self-love so strong that, when the COVID-19 pandemic sends everyone home early, the kids can rely on it remotely.

One out of ten in Denmark suffers from mental illness and it is the most common health condition of them all. Yet, due to the taboo and stigmatisation of mental illness, it is still under prioritized and as a result the welfare system is pushed to its limits. The care of the mentally ill instead falls upon relatives, most often parents and they become the lifeline and primary carer. When a family member gets sick it affects everyone in that family and especially those who love them. LOVE BOUND unconvers the unconditional love, which governs the relationship most parents have to their children and that must somehow be altered, when a child is suffering from mental illness.

Brendan, an American anthropologist, used to wander the planet exploring human nature in all its forms and beauty. But today, he has to embark on a very different project. After falling in love with a Danish woman, he ends up a stay-at-home dad of two toddlers in Copenhagen, and his own boring life as a caregiver becomes his only object of study. Once unable to conform to a conventional lifestyle, he now discovers the few joys and many hardships of child rearing, as well as the bizarre culture of hygge that surrounds him. Abandoned by his mother as a kid, Brendan swore to never inflict the same trauma on his children, but he suddenly understands the prison she found herself in: “We need to find another word than love for this,” he ponders. Filmed over five years, this tragicomic diary is a relatable, taboo-free look at the exquisite torture of parenthood.

In 2006, the American aluminium company ALCOA decides to build their plant in Greenland. The massive billion dollars’ project is the opportunity for Greenland to become financially independent from Denmark. The film zooms in on the isolated fishing town Maniitsoq as the years pass and the local inhabitants are put on hold – waiting for the American Dream.

In 1973, five men and six women drifted across the Atlantic on a raft as part of a scientific experiment exploring the origins of violence and sexual attraction. Nobody expected what ultimately took place on that 3-month journey. Through archive material and a reunion of the surviving members of the expedition, this film tells the hidden story of the project.

Moroccan paralympic gold medalist Azzedine Nouiri is no longer looking for the longest throw, but to overthrow the system that keeps athletes with different abilities marginalized as destitute second-class citizens.

Did Ida's grandfather live a double life as a secret agent during the cold war? Ida and her father believe that their beloved father and grandfather worked directly for the CIA during the Cold War in Denmark.

A successful rock band from Greenland? Yes, it's not a lie. In 1973, the Greenlandic Sumé released a debut album, which record time made it to all the households on the icy island. But Sumé's success was not just due to their catchy beat rock, but also to the band's ability to put words to the zeitgeist, where Greenlandic culture was slowly fading away

'History is always made in the middle of the night. And when it happens, you are so damned tired, that you couldn't care less,' says Robert Cooper, an EU peace negotiator whose job it is to get Serbia and Kosovo to reach an agreement about peaceful coexistence. National pride and compromise are on everyone's lips, and much is at stake: Kosovo wants to come closer to independence, the Serbs have been promised EU membership if they can reach an agreement, and the EU tries to strengthen its credibility. But how far is each party willing to go? It is the unique characters that make this fascinating film about a delicate political game so vivid and loveable. The stoic, Serbian negotiator has a great passion for rock music, his colleague from Kosovo does not want to miss out on his daily visit to the hairdresser, and Cooper himself has a closet full of ties - one for every conceivable occasion.

Sensitive 12-year-old Alf is the low man on his class' totem pole, and he's sick of it. Forming a secret, Machiavellian alliance with another student who also has grown weary of being bullied, he hatches a plan to throw a wrench into the well-oiled gears of the school social order. Everything seems to go according to plan, until Alf discovers that turning the tables on his tormentors has its own dire consequences.

Based on the journal of Knud Rasmussen's "Great Sled Journey" of 1922 across arctic Canada. The film is shot from the perspective of the Inuit, showing their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. It tells the story of the last great Inuit shaman and his beautiful and headstrong daughter; the shaman must decide whether to accept the Christian religion that is converting the Inuit across Greenland.

This is the story of Max, the director's own story, playfully animated within the realms of documentary. Max's story goes back several generations to sailors, industrialists and Summer of Love hippies, all of whom are depicted with whole-hearted love and equal amounts of irony.

When a young pedantic daughter is at work, her mother transforms into a passionate dancer, using their overfilled flat as a stage. A heartwarming comedy about prejudice, self-respect and dreams fulfilled.

A couple shares an intimate moment in their bedroom. His attempts to arouse her go seriously wrong, resulting in a series of emotional, physical and hydrological explosions.

Despite its suggestive title, this multi-part Danish omnibus film is not a work of exploitation. Instead, it presents 20 different short films (back-to-back) on the general theme of Danish women, directed by filmmakers including Krzysztof Zanussi, Monika Treut, Gustav Hamos, David Blair, Vibeke Vogel, Dusan Makavejev, Morten Skallerud and Lars Norgaard. Some dramatic vignettes mix with other comedic ones, but all are offbeat and experimental. The picture includes one animated sequence (by Norgaard).