Discoveries from Denmark World Cinema

It's a paradox that the world's population is getting fatter and fatter when many dream of being thin. Why can't weight be controlled?

A simple and beautiful film about a three-year-old girl spending an afternoon in her own company, with a jar of colour at hand and her own body as a canvas.

An experimental film based on the young painter Søren Hansen's expressive graphic plates, which appear in the film's close-ups as a rugged, divided and hostile world in itself. (DFI)

With the relationship between mother and daughter as a common theme, the film is divided into 9 image rooms with action patterns that are based on archetypal images and motifs. The film is unconventional in its choice of means of action. Ursula Reuter Christiansen, who is a painter, tells her adventurous stories with an emphasis on the visual element, which works in interaction with Henning Christiansen's original soundtrack. (DFI)

The Danish-Iranian filmmaker Roja is in the most difficult period of her 36-year life. She is pregnant with her son Oskar and is diagnosed with incurable cancer. In the midst of all this, she must try to find herself. The film is her journey filmed over six dramatic years, in which she documents her everyday life and her thoughts about living with a disease that can cost her everything. How do you live when your precious time on earth is running out too soon? However, Roja is the last to feel sorry for herself. She immerses herself in being present, and then she sets out to chart her Iranian origins and the dramatic history of her family, which opened a new chapter when her politically engaged parents fled Iran after the revolution and ended up in Denmark.

The group Young Flowers plays "And who but I should be", Joan dances. Jørgen Roos has manipulated the whole thing. Joan is a professional go-go dancer. People like to look at her and she likes to be watched when she dances. For her, dance is an expression of a kind of joy in life, which is perhaps a postulate. So is the movie. Symbols are such a pretentious thing. Is she thinking all that? Do we put something into it ourselves, or is it manipulation with a hidden meaning - it really doesn't matter, because she is very sweet - Joan. (DFI)

The video is made up of 36 intertitles, singe words or phrases, and an equal number of videoclips.

HUGORM showed its beating, bloody, naked heart on the album "TRO, HUG & KÆRLIGHED" from mid-October 2022, and the culmination after a year of superb reviews and great media coverage occurred with the producer trio's two sold-out concerts in front of well over 4000 fans of HUGARMY in STORE VEGA between Christmas and New Year in the same year.

SKAGERRAK follows the mental development of Casper Steinfath in his attempt to be the first person in the world to paddle from Denmark to Norway. A journey revealing that there's more to it than getting from A to B.

A Day in the Smoke is a documentary film from a coffee shop in downtown Cairo where men from all social classes, young and old, meet and talk about about life, money and most important, love. A multiplot story unfolds and gives a rare insight into the mens world in the Arab world today.

Danish Alexander films himself while following the Ukrainian army.

Mr Holm, an umbrella manufacturer, is haunted by the name ‘Bech’, which he suddenly appears everywhere in his home. Holm is convinced that Bech – the famous theatre actor – is courting his wife. In fact, he is almost right. The actor Bech fancies the employee in Holm’s umbrella shop. But the confusion does not end here: Holm’s maid is also in love with a man called Bech – the local butcher’s apprentice. Will Holm figure it all out? (Stumfilm.dk)

In his debut as a documentary filmmaker, Morten Meldgaard tells the story of freedom fighter Kim Malthe-Bruun. Through excerpts from Kim's letters and diaries, the memories of those he left behind, and selected contemporary film footage from the places Kim describes, the film depicts a series of precisely sensed moments in the journey of an unusual young man through life toward an all too early death. The film is a human story about love, joie de vivre, heroism, powerlessness, and grief, and it provides insight into how a country's history affects the fate of individual families and individuals.

A radical fashion trend makes women swoon and men scoff. Can you imagine – trousers for women? Unfortunately for two ladies, the moralising society will soon teach them a lesson about dressing modestly. (Stumfilm.dk)

Specialklassen is perhaps one of Denmark's most cohesive improv groups. They deliver razor-sharp improv comedy, guaranteed to make you laugh out loud! Here is their first release from Bremen Teater! So get ready for a good laugh at home on the sofa!

A cheerful portrait of the poet, based on approx. 160 different images, most unknown to the general public. The photographs were taken from the time he was 45 until his death.

A film about guilt, sorrow but also of finding one's new place in life after the most tragic and life changing experience. The story is told by director Tor Nygård Kolding who was part of the pile of people in front of the stage, when nine young men were suffocated during Pearl Jam's concert during the 2000 Roskilde Festival.

Every day is life and death for the circus performers of the big city. Tightrope dancer Ulla lives and works in a circus with her family. Tragically, her husband plunges to his death after a wrong step during the eternal acrobatic ‘dance macabre’. In the midst of Ulla’s grief, the lion tamer proves to be a true predator, eyeing up an easy prey. Ulla quickly faces bigger worries, as the circus director forces her to walk on a tightrope directly over the lion tamer’s ferocious lions. (Stumfilm.dk)

Hans and Beate are a happy couple. They have two cute children and are well off financially. Furthermore, Hans is on his way up another rung on the career ladder. Everything looks good. There is only one small but; Hans has a male lover - and suddenly tragedy strikes, AIDS.

A paraphrase of H.C. Andersen's fairy tale of the same name. Visual acid for the eyes. (DFI)

Home helper Katja is drawn to the paralyzed and disabled Jim. She invites her curious friend Vera to meet him. But when Vera begins to dig into Jim's past, things take an unexpected turn that challenges their relationship and brings the shadows of the past to light.

FirstGrade, a Danish clothing- and merchandisebrand founded by Anders og Jesper, experience head- and tailwind on the road to success and greatness.

We call them 'particularly sensitive'. The children and youths who for no obvious reason suffer from fear – fear of the dark, fear of school camps, fear of going to school and, not least, fear of being away from the parents, even for just a short moment. 'Mom – I'm Scared' closely follows three girls who all suffer from extreme anxiety and therefore – together with their parents – embark on a course of treatment with child psychologists called 'Cool Kids'.

In black and white, you can see the baking of a hash cake. In color you can see the collection of a TA'-Box bag. The faces of the characters are never seen - only their hands. The two courses are cut in parallel. (DFI)

Experimental film in colour from 1971 by Danish photographer Keld Helmer-Petersen (1920-2013).

Something is wrong with Bean-TOBO’s insides... Subversively set within a cute-silly world, a remarkable short film that tackles themes of vulnerability, feelings of unworthiness, and the connection that we truly crave with each other.

Each powerful step in one woman's wild, ritualistic journey to freedom is told with both tenderness and rawness.

A stop-motion adaptation of the story of Sisyphus.

Film portrait of Danish jazz musician and trumpeter Jakob Sørensen.

Emil takes his friend Ask for a swim in the sea. On the trip, they talk about their friendship - and everything and nothing. When Ask starts flirting with him, Emil is unsure what to do.

35mm short by Jens Jorgen Thorsen.

A tableau film about blowing up mountains to extract pigment to create the colour white, in both a concrete and figurative sense.

Film screening and talk. Experience a coral’s response to rising water temperatures in a visual work that documents the tragic beauty of corals’ endangered existence. Shown in a loop followed by a talk between the artist and scientist Elena Bollati.

The first two years in Denmark’s only crisis centre for young people under 18. Joannahuset gives vulnerable young people a temporary home and a helping hand in the fight against a bureaucracy that doesn’t always listen to them.

A personal documentary about loss.

Join Eske Willerslev on a research tour of the US where 10,000-year-old bones may tell us about the first Americans, but where ethical and personal dilemmas pile up in the Danish professor’s encounters with today's indigenous peoples. Danish researcher Eske Willerslev has spent more than 10 years travelling around the US to study the genomic data and what it can tell us about the early humans. A journey in which his encounters with indigenous tribes, who are today fighting to have the remains of their ancestors reburied, forces Willerslev to reconsider his own position and possible biases in his interpretation of the ambiguous data. His objective ideals as a scientist are put to the test in the encounter with the Paiute-Shoshone tribe, leading the Danish scientist to a terrifying spiritual experience.

Max and Bastian are both between childhood and adolescence. Max was born a girl, but has come out as a transgender boy. And Bastian, born a boy, feels more like a girl. They are both faced with the choice of whether to start on hormones to end their puberty. But can you trust themselves when everything is constantly changing? Max and Bastian are surrounded by friends and family who do everything they can to understand them and help them to whatever they decide in Julie Bezerra Madsen’s equally empathetic film, which follows them through a period in life when everyone is changing – some of us just change a bit more than others.

When director Carina Randlov’s father retired, it happened without trumpet fanfare. In fact, he was financially screwed and got no goodbyes or thank yous on the way out. Retirement is a huge change in one’s life, identity and self-perception – and these are exactly the three things Randløv sets out to explore. From a warm, anthropological angle, she talks to a large cast of ordinary people about their experience of the transition to a retired life. And if there’s one thing everyone agrees on, it’s that recognition outweighs cold hard cash. And when recognition costs no one anything, why should it really be so hard to pass on?

Insightful diary about a young Danish basketball talent who goes alone to the US to test her skills and pursue her dream. But what do you do when you all of a sudden find yourself in another country during a worldwide lockdown?

Second part of LEGO ferie 1973. LEGO and the cinematic possibilities are played with. Released in 1976, 5/14/2013 (online)

The film gives a strong view of the everyday life of Icelanders when the film is shot, but that year was a record year for the export of herring products and herring fishing and herring salting therefore cover a large part of the film.

The 76 year old Jenny Jespersen lives in Bovbjerg byt the west coast of Jutland in Denmark. She has a sober approach to life and a strong Christian faith. "A human with faith is like a bird without wings", she says. Poeticly the film shows Jenny and her everyday life on a farm with her bachelor son and all their habits. But it is also a portrait of a beautiful and special region shaped by rough weather and strong beliefs.

William is fed up with Næstved. He is tired of living in a field, from where he has to cycle 20 minutes in the dark to get to town, he is tired of keeping half his life secret from his mother and father. And he is tired of his best friend Magnus also starting to behave like his parents. Magnus is fed up with Larry not knowing how to take care of his pets, which always end up dying. Larry is pretty fed up with being called Larry. The three 19-year-old friends are approaching adulthood, and their carefree days of ice-cold beers, shoplifting, and dreams of traveling the world on a shared fishing boat are coming to an end. William is facing a crisis of loyalty. The choice is between their shared boyhood dreams and William's own. Should he stay in Næver or go his own way?

A darkly humorous and poetic tale about a small person in a big universe. In 1870s London, industrialisation and the pursuit of progress have changed people. In the city, we meet Emma, whose boyfriend has left her for a promotion. Left to an uncertain fate, she is led by a black cat into a disused theater, where she encounters the down-and-out magician Roberto. Determined to prove his worth, he puts everything into impressing Emma with one last spectacular show. But the magic is out of control, and Emma is not entirely above board.

A touching, unexpected friendship anchors this stark, first-person window into psychosis – blurring the lines between reality and hallucination, fantasy and terror.