The industry section of Copenhagen documentary festival CPH:DOX has unveiled the Summit and Conference program, which runs March 16-19. Featured speakers include U.S. filmmaker John Wilson, Emmy nominated three times for “How to With John Wilson,” and U.S. filmmaker Sara Dosa, an Oscar nominee with “Fire of Love.”
Other speakers include Malaysia-born director-producer Poh Si Teng, an Emmy winner with “Patrice: The Movie” and whose “American Doctor” was competing at Sundance this year, Irish filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea, whose “All About the Money” was competing at Sundance this year, U.S. editor-writer Joe Bini, an Emmy winner with “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” and U.S. filmmaker Adam Khalil, a member of the Ojibwe tribe, whose “Aanikoobijigan” won an audience award at Sundance this year.
Mara Gourd-Mercado, head of industry and training at CPH:DOX, said they saw the Conference and Summit program as “a moment to come together and reflect on the deep changes and challenges we need to tackle head on as an industry.”
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She said the program “serves as a hub for bold conversations on challenging conglomerates power over content, securing ‘safe havens’ for independent voices, looking at AI as a tool and redefining our relationship to it.”
She added, “Through hands-on discussions and insights from industry leaders, the program promises to spark fresh ideas and equip filmmakers with tactical tools to bypass algorithms and resist censorship amongst other things.”
CPH:DOX SUMMIT (March 16)
‘Media Sovereignty: Rethink, Envision, Redefine’
This “strategic response to Europe’s democratic recession” aims to “redefine media sovereignty in an era of U.S. platform dependence.” By bridging the gap between investigative journalism and film, these discussions offer documentary professionals “concrete lessons on adaptability and solidarity from media ecosystems operating under immense pressure.”
The Summit is curated by producer Mark Edwards, Danielle Turkov Wilson, founder and CEO of Think-Film Impact Productions, and researcher Sameer Padania, and is hosted by producer Beadie Finzi. It is presented in collaboration with ARTE.
The program, which opens with a keynote by Bruno Patino, president of ARTE France, “confronts a public-interest media infrastructure that is effectively melting.”
The first session, “The Act of Building: New Infrastructure for Information Ecosystems Under Siege,” examines how “concentrated platform power, opaque algorithms, and information warfare are driving the need for new digital, financial, and physical infrastructures that documentary and media makers can defend and rebuild.”
Next is “To Be Seen or Not to Be Seen, That Is the Question: The Strategies We Will Need to Connect, Engage and Inspire Citizens in 2030,” a forward-looking strategy session on how independent creatives and distributors can combine forces to “ensure vital stories still reach citizens in 2030, despite constrained access and rising misinformation.”
The Summit concludes with “Tales From the Frontlines,” featuring Joanna Krawczyk (journalist, Correctiv.Europe), Irma Dimitradze (journalist, Georgia), and Bea Wangondu (journalist/director, “Kikuyu Land’). These practitioners share tactical approaches for resisting censorship and utilizing grassroots innovations – from AI-powered fact-checking to cross-border partnerships – to restore trust and protect local democracy.
CONFERENCE DAY ONE (March 17)
Day one of the Conference opens with “A Morning With: Poh Si Teng,” dissecting the ethics of directing in conflict zones via her debut “American Doctor,” moderated by Thom Powers (“Pure Non-Fiction”).
Following this, the program explores the making of “Time and Water” in a conversation with Sara Dosa (director), Shane Boris (producer), and Carolyn Bernstein (executive vice president, documentary films at National Geographic), moderated by Anthony Kaufman (journalist).
Shifting from the visual to the visceral, “The Art of Listening” then explores “how sonic cinema can unlock radical empathy,” featuring filmmakers Hira Nabi (director, “They (No Longer) Remember”), Onyeka Igwe (director, “Penkelemes”), and Anne Gry Friis Kristensen, moderated by Luke W. Moody (head of the BFI Doc Society Fund).
The afternoon session, “What Is Truth Anyway,” confronts the structural crisis of reality with Joe Bini (writer, editor, filmmaker) and Sofie Hvitved (head of media at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies), moderated by Tabitha Jackson (director of Film Forum, New York).
The day continues with “From Prompt to Protocol: The Making of DoxAI,” a workshop facilitated by the Atmospheric Intelligences Initiative and Doc Society, moderated by Diego Galafassi (director, Climate Story Lab Nordic), that invites the doc community to a “speculative design exercise for an AI system grounded in shared values.”
The program then expands into new storytelling forms with “Multi-Sensory Storytelling,” moderated by Mandy Rose (professor, UWE Bristol), exploring immersive formats that engage smell, touch and positional awareness to “move documentary beyond the screen” together with Ali Adjorlu (associate professor, Aalborg University).
CONFERENCE DAY TWO (March 18)
Day two begins with “A Morning With: Sinéad O’Shea,” before shifting to challenge the status quo of film language.
The session “Constructing Your Own Cinematic Language” features the “Jaripeo” team, directors Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig, on crafting queer, hybrid aesthetics in rural settings, moderated by the film’s co-producer Elena Fortes.
It then continues with “Rekindling the Machine – Documentary in the Age of AI,” a panel that examines how filmmakers can move from “users” to “architects” of human-centric storytelling, facilitated by Doc Society and the Atmospheric Intelligences Initiative together with Marc Silver (director, “Molly vs. the Machine”).
Widening the lens from individual craft to collective narrative responsibility, “We’re All Doomed – Can Hope Survive the Permacrisis?” asks if “we can tell dystopian stories that foster solidarity instead of despair.” Bryan Yazell (associate professor, University of Southern Denmark), Pierre-Christophe Gam (artist, architectural designer) and Maisha Wester (professor in American Cultural Studies, Black Diaspora Studies, Film Studies and Gothic literature) lead this debate on how we face the future together, moderated by Jamie Perera (composer, sound artist and producer).
Following this, “What’s Next? Future Perspectives on the Shifting Eco-System of the Creative Documentary” addresses the end of the recent golden age of creative documentaries. This conversation will “seek to identify and unpack the different dynamics at play with a view to understanding what is in store for the future of the funding, financing and circulation of independent nonfiction filmmaking” together with Barbara Truyen (executive producer, EPIC Docs), Chris White (executive producer, American POV), Jon-Sesrie Goff (program officer, Ford Foundation), and Andreas Møl Dalsgaard (CEO, Elk Film).
The day wraps up on a dynamic note as Keith Wilson (producer, artist and director) presents “Plane of Losers,” a live documentary performance that “questions the awards-industrial complex and offers a fresh perspective on success, prioritizing community over competition.”
CONFERENCE DAY THREE (March 19)
Day three of the Conference begins with HBO cult icon John Wilson, known for his stream-of-consciousness style in “How to With John Wilson.” In conversation with Thom Powers, Wilson will discuss his dry wit and eclectic approach to his latest feature, “The History of Concrete.”
The focus then shifts to “Updated Reflections on Contemporary Palestinian Documentary Filmmaking,” where members of the Palestinian delegation Ashtar Muallem, Dalia Al-Kury and Kinda Kurdi discuss how “diverse cinematic approaches to historic Palestine can heal trauma and act as cultural resistance against erasure.”
The afternoon continues with “Liberatory Image-Making: New Perspectives on Sovereignty and Futurity in Indigenous-Led Nonfiction Cinema,” exploring the future of indigenous-led non-fiction.
Moderated by Emile Hertling Péronard (producer), speakers Tracy Rector (executive producer at Deenaadai), Johannes Ujo Müller (“Our Flag”) and Adam Khalil (filmmaker, artist) discuss “how indigenous communities determine their own cultural manifestations on screen,” while Inunnguaq Petrussen (CEO, Greenlandic Film Institute) gives a presentation about the newly established and highly anticipated Greenlandic Film Institute and the current situation in Greenland, highlighting “the importance of narrative sovereignty.”
Finally, “Position, Privilege and the Epistemic Power of the Gaze: Towards Narrative Positionality” examines the ethics of narrative positionality with Nathan Grossman (director, “Amazomania”), Tess Sophie Skadegård Thorsen (consultant and media/tech ethics expert), and Kiyoko McCrae (program director, Chicken&Egg), moderated by Leonard Cortana (inclusion and partnerships manager, EURODOC). The session asks filmmakers to consider how their closeness or distance to a subject – and their relationship with the people filmed – shapes the story they tell and the on-screen representation of those people.
