Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival

CPH:DOX is devoted to supporting independent and innovative film and to present contemporary non-fiction, art cinema and experimental film. The festival has been recognized for its sharp and daring programme profile with a special focus on exploring the hybrid field between documentary practice and various type of staging – sometimes to controversial effect.[2]

Besides its seven international competitions, the festival presents parallel curated and guest curated sections. In recent years, artists and filmmakers such as The xx, Anohni, Harmony Korine, Animal Collective, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Ben Rivers & Ben Russell, Ai Weiwei, The Yes Men, Olafur Eliasson and Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis have curated film programmes exclusively for CPH:DOX. Parallel to this the festival has been presenting retrospective programmes with among others Phillippe Grandrieux, Nathalie Djurberg, Vincent Moon, Charles Atlas, and James Benning & Sadie Benning, as well as installations and exhibitions film and video artists, among them Michelangelo Frammartino, Keren Cytter and Charles Atlas.

The festival hosts seminars, debates and events as well as the curated concert series Audio:Visuals, where bands and artists perform to original work created for the occasion by visual artists. CPH:DOX also presents a number of other initiatives parallel to the festival itself: the industry platform CPH:Forum, with the attached CPH:Market for buyers and programmers, is a financing and co-production forum as well as a networking facility which takes place for three days during the festival. In 2011, the related ART:FILM branch was launched with the aim to facilitate the development and actual production of artists' films in the feature length format. CPH:DOX runs the five-day CPH:Conference as well as the experimental educational course DOX:Academy for students, both of which take place during the festival.

In 2009, the festival launched the international talent development and film production workshop CPH:LAB (formerly known as DOX:LAB) where around 20 filmmakers are invited each year to develop and direct a film in teams of two. CPH:LAB has been a great success with films premiering and winning prizes at film festivals such as Venice, the Berlinale, Rotterdam, and elsewhere.

Following the 2015 edition of CPH:DOX, the festival announced that it would change its dates from November to March, and the first of the new spring editions of the festival was held from March 16–26, 2017, with the centrally located Kunsthal Charlottenborg as the new festival center.[3]

At the industry segment CPH:WIP, Nordic works in progress are presented to the potential sponsors and distributors.[4]

In response to the covid-19 pandemic, in 2020 CPH:DOX held their festival virtually using a Shift72 video-on-demand platform that was built and launched in just 24 hours.[5]

CPH: DOX is part of the Doc Alliance – a creative partnership between 7 key European documentary film festivals.

Juries hand out prizes in seven international competition programmes:

• The CPH:DOX Award for international documentary features goes with a €10,000 prize;[6]
• The NEW:VISION Award for experimental and artists' film (€5,000 prize);[6]
• The F:ACT Award for films in the field between investigative journalism and documentary (€5,000 prize);[6]
• The NORDIC:DOX Award for Nordic documentaries and artists' films (€5,000 prize);[6]
• The NEXT:WAVE Award for emerging filmmakers and artists (€5,000 prize);[6]
• The Politiken:Danish:Dox Award awarded by a jury of film critics from the Danish newspaper Politiken;
• The Doc Alliance Award is handed out in collaboration between CPH:DOX and six other European documentary film festivals to one of the seven films nominated by the participating festivals;[6]
• The Audience Award winner is chosen by the festival-goers (€5,000 prize);[6]
• The Human:Rights Award was introduced in 2024 in collaboration with the Institute for Human Rights.[6]

• Official website