Six Documentaries to See at CPH:DOX 2024

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Taking place from 13 – 24 March 2024, CPH:DOX is one of the biggest and most prestigious documentary festivals in the world. With a mission to promote the art of documentary filmmaking, the festival is know for its diverse array of films and fantastic program that includes events, director talks, and more.

This year’s themes are “Body Politics” and “Conflicted,” and these themes are applied broadly – from issues of reproductive rights to ableism, to war and internal turmoil. The festival takes its themes seriously, but its core values more seriously. In that way, they end up with a program that is both coherent and incredibly deep.

Ready to see some fantastic films? We’ve combed the program to find the best six documentaries at this year’s CPH:DOX:

Stray Bodies

One woman travels from Malta to Italy to have an abortion. At the same time, another woman is travelling from Italy to Greece to receive IVF treatment in the hope of becoming pregnant. Their situations are very different, but they are connected by strict legislation that forces them to seek help outside their home country. The women are two of the many travellers across Europe’s borders, where religion and politics often have more say over your own body than you do. “Stray Bodies” maps the continent’s contradictions, from sperm donation to euthanasia while raising questions about life and death with great cinematic exuberance.

Stray Bodies

G – 21 scenes from Gottsunda

Gottsunda, Sweden: a suburb of Uppsala and one of Sweden’s most dangerous places. Drugs, crime, gangs and violence are commonplace. But Gottsunda is also the childhood home of the film’s director and protagonist, Loran Batti. While he is on his way out and has found a different path, his childhood friends have spiralled further and further into the underworld. With confidential access to the tough criminal underworld, he takes us behind the media’s portrayal of gang violence in Sweden.

G – 21 scenes from Gottsunda

Blueberry Dreams

Led by the good-hearted father Soso, a family of four starts a blueberry farm. But with a home in northern Georgia, their village is close to the border with the Russian-backed region of Abkhazia, where new conflicts have been rumbling for 30 years. Soso is a retired engineer, but with his wife Nino and their sons Giorgi and Lazare, he throws himself into the “Plant the Future” programme set up by the Georgian authorities to stabilise the area. In the midst of their daily lives, the family navigates between hardship, joy and contemplation of a different future.

Blueberry Dreams

Teaches of Peaches

“Fuck the Pain Away” was a musical breakthrough in the early 2000s: a song that celebrates female sexual liberation with a simple beat and irresistible lyrics. Behind the track was Canadian musician and performance artist Merrill Nisker, better known as Peaches. With sharp interviews, colorful concert footage, and prophetic archive material, “Teaches of Peaches” tells the story of the uncompromising singer and artist from her punk youth in Berlin to a messy apartment in Canada, where her flatmate Feist sings backing vocals on her debut album, and on to the preparations for her anniversary tour.

Teaches of Peaches

Gaucho Gaucho

In the desolate mountains of Argentina live the so-called gauchos. Cowboys and cowgirls dressed in beautiful uniforms and with a spiritual connection to their horses and the land they ride on. They drink mate, race, gallop, and lasso as their ancestors did. Out of time, but certainly not out of place. In stunningly beautiful black and white images that capture every grain of desert dust, “Gaucho Gaucho” is not only one of the most beautiful films of the year, it is also a true Argentine Western with understated humour and a melancholic touch of Old World charm in a time of slow, but certain, change.

Gaucho Gaucho

Black Box Diaries

Shiori Ito is a brave woman with big ambitions. As a journalist, she covers the Washington beat for one of Japan’s biggest newspapers. When her boss sexually assaults her after a night out, everything changes. She chooses to launch a year-long investigation that ends in a high-profile trial. But opposition from all sides is fierce, and it becomes a tough and gruelling battle for Shiori. She also gets help from unexpected quarters, and in two scenes where good people support her simply because it’s the right thing to do, you can’t help but empathise. The film is Shiori’s diary of an unimaginably hard and lonely struggle to improve women’s rights and bring a conservative element of culture into the 21st century.

Black Box Diaries

We have an exclusive discount for our readers! Use code SCAN20 to get 20% off your CPH:DOX tickets.

See the full CPH:DOX 2024 program.

Want more of the best Scandinavian film? Take a look at our articles on the best Danish films to watch, the best Swedish films to watch, the best Dogme95 films, and the best films by Ingmar Bergman.