DK
12-year-old Martin finds the going tough. Manhood is approaching, but so far mostly as aches and pain. His mother's men friends are definitely nothing like the father he does not have. So some kind of male bonding is inevitable when he meets Funder, a juvenile droput on the run from the police. There is also girl-friend Rikke to consider. Who needs Martin the most? Coming of age isn't so easy.
Nov 1991
A drama-documentary film about the fatal effect of poor living conditions on health – the so-called "social inheritance." The principal characters in the film are two fourteen or fifteen-year-old children, Carl and Hanne. Covering a hundred-year period and drawing on case stories recorded by actual hospital staff, the film illustrates a number of variations of "the same old story."
Oct 1980
A staged documentary about an American ex-Vietnam soldier who teaches other Americans - men, women, children - to use weapons to defend themselves and obtain the possibility to say: "NO".
Feb 1984
The intention of the film is to give an impression of what small exotic Denmark looks like, what the strange Danes look like and how they are. Nearly 100 Danes are presented in the film, amongst them a racing cyclist, a Minister of Finance, a popular actor and 13 unmarried women from a provincial town. "There is too much fogginess and rain and melancholy in most of the pictures of Denmark," says Jørgen Leth. "But not in my film. I would like to show you some authentic, clear and beautiful pictures from this strange country."
Jan 1972
It is time for the written examination. Everybody is waiting for the exact time to come where they can turn the paper and start the examination. All the tables are placed in lines in the assembly hall. Not a sound is being made and the atmosphere bears the marks of excitement, anticipation and nervousness.
Jan 1993
Starring Reuter Christiansen herself and shot in the lush landscape of Møn, the Danish island where she has lived since 1970, THE EXECUTIONER uses a fragmented narrative to tell “a story of woman’s degradation and exaltation,” as its subtitle indicates. A landmark of Danish feminist art, the film was also Reuter Christiansen’s first major collaboration with Henning, who composed the film’s lyrical, subtly experimental music.
May 1973
A satirical presentation of the public school debate, exhibiting three different teaching methods. First, the authoritarian education system of old; Second, a more modern form, combining theory and practice; and finally, the teacher's nightmare, where children are taught only the necessities for modern life: sales techniques, status symbols, and how to (quite literally) elbow your way to the top.
Jan 1978
The boy Kim moves with his family from the countryside to a ghetto in a big city. He does not do too well in school, and that makes him an easy victim for the hard core bullies in the new school. When the group leader is moved to a private school, Kim is accepted in the gang - as long as he provides cigarettes for the other members. This of course leads to a confrontation with the school teachers, his family and eventually the gang members.
Oct 1981
The 76 year old Jenny Jespersen lives in Bovbjerg byt the west coast of Jutland in Denmark. She has a sober approach to life and a strong Christian faith. "A human with faith is like a bird without wings", she says. Poeticly the film shows Jenny and her everyday life on a farm with her bachelor son and all their habits. But it is also a portrait of a beautiful and special region shaped by rough weather and strong beliefs.
Dec 1977
A take it or leave it auteur-experimental fiction exercise: two women are monitoring their dreams, dreams that may of course also be stark naked reality, at least to the dreamers, as they come and they go like bubbles, rising, floating, bursting. A man appears out of nowhere. Poet Peter Laugesen co-wrote the script with Tom Elling, who was Lars von Trier's director of photography on "The Element of Crime".
Apr 1990
An existential pictorial poem about human life. "Can they stand it? Do they never feel?" (DFI)
Jan 1970
Report from life at a campsite on Samsø. The campsite is seen as an introduction to Denmark, as a Danish microcosm.
Sep 1989
The basis of the film is a series of original drawings with the joint title 'Upruption', drawn by Palle Nielsen from the autumn of 1965 to the beginning of 1966. There are people fleeing from a disaster which has already caught up with them, people thrown to the ground as if by a giant blow, crawling , cowering, always with their faces turned in terror to the sky, while entire cities crash around them. There is a mute, nameless horror around these faces that scream without sound. (DFI)
Jan 1968
Psychedelic music film in shapes and colors. (DFI)
An art film by Per Arnoldi about a wide range of things with redundant, non-functional ornamentation and banal beauty: Cakes, candies, lollipops, mechanical toys, slot machines, paper hats, masks, noses, fireworks, streamers, artificial flowers, pranks, flags and much more more. It is terrific that such ornate things are produced, on top of that by machine, and add appetizing and purchase-promoting properties to them. And in terms of beauty, this very banality can be accepted as fully as anything else. (DFI)
Jan 1969
An interview with Yugoslavian director Dušan Makavejev.
Jan 1974
Africa-related animals and things are spelled and illustrated with Bent Barfod's wonderful animations. A for Africa, B for banana, C for chimpanzee, D for dromedary... The text was improvised by children from Den Lille Skole in Lyngby. (DFI)
Jan 1964
Klaus Rifbjerg is a portrait that has the author talking about his work in a series of tableaux.
An animated film about sex -- regarded from a more humorous point of view than usual. (DFI)
Nov 1964
The race against time ... Water, blooming life/suffocating death. Fighting back to life despite an irreversible loss is the greatest victory over death.