CPH PIX to offer 400 screenings during 18-day event

”We have programmed the same number of films and screenings as last year, simply extended the period, to give audiences a better chance to attend. Obviously we are curious to see how it works,” festival director Jacob Neiiendam explained.

Celebrating punk, the festival announced the 2011 catalogue at Copenhagen’s Grand Theatre, with the first and only screening of the video project, Flow My Firetear, by Danish artists Michael Kvium, Christian Lemmerz, featuring the first performance by Sort Sol in nine years.

”Since CHP PIX was launched in 2009, we have wanted to focus on new talent as well as the crossovers of art, music, theatre, dance and cinema. They are all widely represented in the programme before and during the festival,” he added.

Denmark’s largest showcase has selected more than 160 new films, including 10 entries in the main competition vying for the $42,000 (€30,000) New Talent Grand PIX, adding retrospectives and sidebars, such as spotlights on Germany, Italy, Romania and the UK.

Among the ”amazing newcomers” competing - per the festival chief - are Albania’s Buyar Alimani (Amnesty/Amnistia), Canada’s Daniel Cockburn (You Are Here), and China’s Zhang Ziyu (Pear), and France’s Romain Costa-Gavras (Our Day Will Come/Notre jour viendra).

CPH PIX opener will be UK director Michael Winterbottom’s Steve Coogan-Rob Brydon road movie, The Trip. Among the 400 screenings are India’s most expensive blockbuster, S Sharan’s Robot (Endhiran) and Danish opera director Kaper Holten’s crack at Mozart’s (Don) Juan.

”We are also happy to offer a full retrospective of Polish director Andrzej Zulawski, who will hold a masterclass here. So far only one of his films has been released in Denmark; we have even managed to dig up two rare TV films from his early years,” Neiiendam concluded.

Danish legendary punk band Sort Sol will reunite for a concert on Apr 8. CPH PIX will also screen Australian director Peter Weir’s The Way Back (Mar 23) and connect to the live feed of UK director Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein from London’s National Theatre (Mar 24).

UK composer Michael Nyman, who won an Oscar for Jane Campion’s The Piano, will be on stage (Apr 29) for a concert, interview and screening. German director FW Murnau’s 1927 silent, Sunrise, will screen to live music by the KTL duo.

At the awards show (Apr 30), adding to the festival’s New Talent Grand PIX to a first time feature in the programme, the Nordic Film Composers Network will present its Nordic Film Composers Award to one of the five nominees whose scores will be performed on stage.

And Swedish sexploitation star Christine Lindberg will visit Copenhagen to present an Apr 7 double bill of Exposed (Exponerad) from 1971 and Anita – Swedish Nymphet (Anita – ur en tonårsflickas dagbog) from 1973, two of the 24 films that garnered her international fame.

Last year a 10-day showcase, strongly obstructed by the Icelandic volcanic ash alert, the merger of the Copenhagen International Film Festival and the NatFilm Festival registered 40,200 admissions for more than 500 screenings.