Local productions screening include Carlsen’s Memory of My Melancholy Whores.

Tonight, Danish director Carl Th Dreyer will return to the screen in the world premiere of Australian-British actor, director and choreographer Stuart Lynch’s Dreyer, the Tyrannical Dane, a film and theatre show which will launch CPH PIX 2012 – the fourth Copenhagen International Film Festival, which runs through April 29.

Commissioned by the festival, the performance stars Norwegian-Danish actor Baard Owe, who played in Dreyer’s last film, Gertrud (1964) – and it will be staged at Copenhagen’s Dagmar Teatret, where Dreyer was cinema director for 16 years.

Tomorrow’s opening film will be Finnish director Timo Vuorensola’s dark sci-fi comedy, Iron Sky, introduced by Vuorensola and producer Tero Kaukoma; released last week (April 4) in Finland to become No 1 on the charts, it took 164,000 admissions from 164 screens during Easter weekend in Germany.

”I think we have this year found a good balance between films, popular events and cinema-related concerts, adding an extensive programme for the industry,” said festival director Jacob Neiiendam, who has scheduled 158 movies for eight Copenhagen (and two provincial) theatres.

Danish veteran director Henning Carlsen’s Memory of My Melancholy Whores will spearhead the selection of local productions, also including Anders Rønnow Klarlund’s The Secret Society of Fine Arts, Frederikke Aspöck’s Out of Bounds (Labrador) and Icelandic director Runár Runársson’s Volcano (Eldfjall).

Ten international feature debuts will compete for the €30,000 New Talent Grand PIX, judged by a jury of French director Mia Hansen-Løve (who also shows three of her own films), German director Matthias Glasner (screening Mercy), and Indian director Anurag Kayshap.

The annual retrospective focuses on the late Italian director Carmelo Bene with five films; Maestros covers new works by established filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Abel Ferrara, Guy Maddin, Aleksandr Sokurov and the Dardenne Brothers; Front Runners introduces the voices of the future.

Prohibitive Denmark presents films banned in Denmark from pre-1969 porn and erotica, with a compilation of scenes which the film censors cut. Spotlights are directed at Germany, Italy and Iran, and US director Jonathan Demme concludes his Neil Young trilogy with Journeys.

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