When they’re not too busy writing fairytales, baking pastries or oozing sex appeal, the Danish make pretty dab-handed film enthusiasts. Reshaping the European film industry with directors such as Lars von Trier, Susanne Bier and Jørgen Leth, the Scandinavian island is also leading the way with exciting new possibilities within the burgeoning film festival market.

Now in its furtive fourth year, CPH:PIX is the capital city’s premier celebration of fiction film. Over the next eighteen days, thousands of Scandinavians and film enthusiasts will have the chance to embrace a fantastical, diverse programme, combining small, mumblecore-galore Indies alongside upcoming Hollywood blockbusters. Although looking forward, the festival always opens up its doors to forgotten cinematic gems of yesteryear, with several important retrospectives of visionaries.

As if those Danes weren’t nice enough, another element of the unique festival programme is sharing the curating responsibility. This year they have invited several artists from all disciplines to host some of their favourite flicks (most notably, Swans’ noisenik Michael Gira), and interpret them in a unique, once in a lifetime performance. Other highlights are set to come from a banned in Denmark collection which will screen some of the nation’s most nefarious works, as well as the New Talent Grand Prix, a competition where ten budding directors present their début works for a jury, with of development money of 30,000 Euros up for grabs.

Along with its sister festival, CPH:DOX (one of the world’s largest and longest running festivals committed to documentary practice), CPH:PIX sets out to make film festivals accessible for cine-nerds and the general public alike. If you’re about, why don’t you cycle by one of the eighteen participating venues and say hi? I’m sure you’d be welcomed with open, beautiful arms.

The 4th CPH:PIX festival runs from 12 – 29th April across Copenhagen. Find out more here.

Over the proceeding eighteen days, I’ll be waxing lyrical about what’s going on around Copenhagen town. Check out the festival programme here, let me know if there’s anything you’d like to read about.

You can also follow my daily progress on twitter, if you want.

Words:

Luke Richardson

This entry was tagged as cph pix, cph:pix, film festival, film., luke richardson.