During Cannes 2023, Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal’s Amir Ganjavie interviewed Niklas Engstrøm the Artistic Director for Copenhagen Film Festivals, which includes CPH:DOX and BUSTER. The highlights of that interview are what follows.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): It’s not always easy to tell documentaries from fictional narratives anymore. The barrier is getting blurry. What is your definition of a documentary?
(NE): I tend to use the good old idea from Grierson that documentary is the creative treatment of actuality. That’s a very wide definition because it doesn’t exclude working with fictional elements. The boundary is porous. It’s difficult to say when you cross the line because it doesn’t really exist as a thorough line. For us at CPH:DOX, it was clear from the beginning we wanted to cross boundaries. We wanted to expand on the notion of documentary, what it is, and what it can be. And to also expand the borders between documentary and fiction as well as the borders of cinema, art, filmmaking, live events, music, etc. So, the whole idea of our festival was to transgress borders. It might be fair to say that from the beginning in 2003, we were one of the prime festivals when it came to pushing the border between documentary and fiction through our selection. We would time and again program films that other people would program in fiction.
(UM): Do you have a definition for a good movie?
(NE): As a programmer, what I really like about the job is that we can provide “a grand perspective” with all kinds of different perspectives with all the films in our selection. The films can be good in many different ways, and when they come together in a selection, then we present something to the world that is important, that creates a many-layered perspective on the world. So, to me, in other words, it’s very difficult to define one way of being a good film. I think there are so many different ways of making good or great films.
For CPH:DOX, I think as a festival where we are now, having worked ourselves up among the many festivals in the world, and now being one of the biggest documentary festivals in the world, I find it exciting to try and find the films that are trying as hard as possible to be artistically innovative, unique and daring, while still also wanting to reach out to an audience and not only making art for art’s own sake.
(UM): Can you start by telling us a little about your selection process? How do you view films to make a decision?
(NE): Well, there are two ways, more or less. There’s one way where filmmakers, producers, film institutes, and other organizations approach us and submit their films. Then there’s the other way around, where we approach them. That is different whether it’s a film that is a potential World Premiere or has screened elsewhere. Then we have a selection committee, a programming team, and our program department. Overall, I’m responsible for the entire program.
We get around 2500 films submitted each year. So, films are screened by different programmers. Then we have a structure where I will see all the films for the competition together with the programming team. So different programmers will see different films, but I will see all of the selected ones. Also, our head of the program, Mads, will see all of the films for the competition, almost all of them at least. And then, there are all the side programs with non-premieres, and different programmers select for those.
(UM): 2500 films are a lot of films. How do watch them all? Do you give films that come from distributors priority?
(NE): All films submitted to CPH:DOX will be watched by someone in the program department. Not necessarily by our head of program or by me personally. But all films will be seen.
(UM): And how do they evaluate film to recommend to you?
(NE): At CPH:DOX it’s quite organic. We have programmers attached to different parts of the selection, especially non-premiere sections. We have a music film programmer. We also have a programmer who focuses on the debates and the impact of films – so she focuses on the very political, social-oriented films and creating debates around them. That’s a special program. We also have a programmer for other special sections like our science programme, but no one is exclusively looking for films for only one section . And they are not the only ones watching those films either. Other programmers will come in and give their opinions as well.
(UM): If someone submits a film that deals with hard science, do you bring in an expert to fact-check?
(NE): No. We do work a lot with the scientific community, and what we do around the science films specifically, is that we work a lot with scientists that come and talk after the screenings of the films. But we believe we can program the films, selecting the right films, and the science will be more or less substantive. But we will have debates and a public evaluation. Because we have people from the scientific community attending the screenings and talking about the films.
(UM): And how do you deal with POV and authenticity? Especially when questions arise about outsider perspectives.
(NE): It’s a huge question, and it’s not easy at all. I believe that all of us have blind spots. It’s very difficult to know whether this is the true representation when it´s coming from a community you don’t belong to. So we try to have a dialogue within the program team. We also try to diversify the programming team so it’s not only people that look like me. Also, CPH:DOX arrange those debates I told you about. Probably more than any other festival in the world. That means, not only having the filmmakers come and talk about their films, but arranging debates with different perspectives. That means that even if we have selected a film that might have a perspective that many people would say is inauthentic, we can try to have the debate right there. We really try to have voices other than those represented by the film present for these debates, because I believe these discussions can’t just happen behind closed doors with programs.
(UM): Does your festival use any quotas for race or gender?
(NE): I mean, we did sign a few years back the 50/50 by 2020. It wasn’t hard for us to reach that goal, and now it swings back and forth around the 50% mark. So this year in competition, I think it was 60% female directors and 40% male in the entire competition program. Last year was the other way around, I think, and that will shift. I truly believe that you don’t need a specific quota.
We work with specific criteria to balance perspectives. Quality is one of the criteria, originality is another. Relevance is a third criterium, and you cannot have a relevant programme if it’s one-sided or overwhelmingly told from white male perspective, for example. On top of that, diversity is the fourth key criterium, and that includes diversity of gender, age, class, ethnicity, geography etc. And just like the other criteria, I believe I think it’s better to work with diversity as guidelines than working for a specific quota on all of those areas.
There’s so much more to be said about the issue, but I’ll also mention with the festival, there’s already a quota. We get support from the European Union and the Creative Europe Media Program. And they will demand a certain quota of European films. It is not a problem for us per se, because we are a European film festival, and it is natural for us to screen a considerable number of European films, but if we continue down that road, putting even more strict quotas on yourself would make programming a festival more like data analysis with an Excel sheet, a job for a robot rather than a human being. I think that it’s important to still keep humanness to the work. And we need to be aware of our end goal of screening artistically interesting and daring programs. So that’s why I think that these guidelines are better.
(UM): Are there any red-line topics you won’t program no matter how good the quality of the film is?
(NE): I’m sure there is. But I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it among films submitted. It would have to be something like super openly racist, or promoting a fascist dictatorship, for example. One thing right now with the Russian War and Ukraine, we actually decided that we would not screen films funded by the Russian State. But that hasn’ caused any difficult programming decisions as of yet. However, right now in Europe there is this war going on, and everyone, I believe, has to take a stand against the Russian state. Not against Russian filmmakers, which means that we will screen films by Russian filmmakers that are not funded by public bodies in Russia. So to be able to screen films by Russian filmmakers focusing on the Putin regime in a critical way, I think that is super important.
© 2020-2023. UniversalCinema Mag.