Going Virtual in the Pandemic Age: CPH:DOX 2020, The Digital Edition

Hard to believe just a few weeks back I was eagerly preparing for my annual pilgrimage to Copenhagen to begin the spring doc fest season. Well, we all know how that turned out. Or not. As a deadly virus forced festivals the world over to cancel, CPH:DOX, long a champion of outside-the-box filmmaking, counterintuitively decided the show must go on. Rather than cut losses and hunker down in social isolation, festival director Tine Fischer and her scrappy team did the exact opposite, reaching out online to actually expand the CPH:DOX audience on a global scale. Picking up and relocating to the virtual realm, they live streamed (as well as uploaded to YouTube) free daily talks, debates, and even the five-day CPH:CONFERENCE. And they made this risky pivot mere days before the event’s opening date (which they not only stuck to but then proceeded to stretch the fest for an extra week) — and all of this amidst the chaos of fast-moving government restrictions and cascading flight cancellations (mine included). Someone should give this festival its own DOX:AWARD.

To read all about my online trip visit Filmmaker magazine.