CPH:DOX 2014 Closing Award Ceremony will not be reviewed…

… because this year I wasn’t invited. I really should stop bashing their opening venue, and if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all… and all that... you know… (I hear the ceremony was tasteful, though).

I did go to the after-party upon receiving a mail in the afternoon from the organizers about some wrongly announced times, so at that point I knew when NOT to go for drinks at the French embassy and the awards show at Hotel d’Angleterre.

But why do I care? I care because I want CPH:DOX to also be my festival. I care about the genre which I work with practically everyday year round and I want the festival to be something that I look forward to, even though I don’t have a film shown or a project being pitched.

Yes, I do already look forward to it and I do watch a great deal of films (and review a couple at www.filmkommentaren.dk), but I kind of miss that the festival embraces the local professional community a bit more. Not because we are professionals, but because we love docs. Of course we all have a free will, but it’s a bit too easy not getting involved if you are a Copenhagen-based filmmaker with no invitations or direct involvement of the festival.

And for god’s sake, let’s not make it too posh. Don’t get me wrong, I love being on the right side of a red, velvet rope with a glass of champagne, but has the whole thing – and probably myself too - become a bit too self-absorbed and elitist? I mean, d’Angleterre? The most bourgeois place in town?

And now you can get selected to become a Kickstarter-project. Am I the only one who finds that a bit ironic that crowd funding projects now has another keyhole to pass? (I haven’t looked into this a lot, so please excuse me if I have misunderstood something re. this initiative)

Anywho, the festival does an enormous job, I enjoy most of it (and subsequently am a bit under the weather now) and the audience seems to like it. Well, that’s another matter: From what I hear, the audience-numbers at regular showings of films also shown at the festival are a bit discouraging. Everything has to be an event nowadays. Clearly, the good folks at CPH:DOX know that already and I don’t (among other things).

So keep up the good work.

PS. Personally, I prefer festivals with no awards at all, but why isn’t there a Danish competition anymore?