Editor

Legendary provocateur Carmelo Bene in retrospective, a seriously funny film section, zombies on location and lots of groundbreaking new talent are a few of the exciting things CPH PIX 2012 has to offer. Visiting the festival with their new films will be the great Canadian auteur Guy Maddin and Greek neo-absurdist Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth).

The tightly packed programme will see the screening of 150 films, lots of insightful seminars, thought-provoking debates, exclusive concerts and original exhibitions, all in eighteen intense days, April 12-29. Below we have selected a few highlights - the full programme is available at www.cphpix.dk.

Focus on fresh talents with strong signatures

10 films by 10 first-time feature film directors compete to win the New Talent Grand PIX with a prize of 30.000 Euro to support the winning director in making the next film. The prize is awarded by an international jury to the director with the strongest signature and the most promising cinematic future. As diverse as the programme, the jury is made up by 3 very different filmmakers: German Matthias Glasner, who will be screening his newest film 'Mercy' at the festival, Anurag Kashyap, an Indian new wave cinema pioneer, and the French director Mia Hansen-Løve, whose three films are screened at the festival.

This year's competition programme consists of carefully selected debut films, that take us all around the world, from an authentic story about serial killers in an Australian suburb, to partying along the Seine in Paris, through Belgian deadpan and obsessive female sexuality.

Films in competition at CPH PIX 2012
'Atomic Age' by Héléna Klotz.
'Hemel' by Sacha Polak.
'L' by Babis Makridis.
'Monkey Sandwich' by Wim Vandekeybus.
'Neighbouring Sounds' by Kleber Mendonça Filho.
'Policeman' by Nadav Lapid.
'Reported missing' by Jan Speckenbach.
'Seven Acts of Mercy' by Gianluca De Serio.
'Snowtown' by Justin Kurzel.
'The Invader' by Nicolas Provost.

'Seriously Funny' festival

With this year's section 'Seriously Funny', we focus on comedies that take themselves and the genre seriously. We screen new films from the Japanese standup-comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto and the American comedians Tim and Eric. The cult phenomenon Mike Stoklasa will visit Copenhagen and present his much loved mock-reviews of films like The Phantom Menace, which have millions of hits on YouTube.

Denmark - country of free speech?

Danes like to believe that they live in a non-censoring country with no limits to their freedom of speech. 'Banned in Denmark' PIX reveals the censorship in Denmark through the ages. From the early 8mm porns made in secrecy before picture pornography was allowed, to films that today are considered classics. Despite what the Danes might think, the primary national broadcasting channel DR was no stranger to censorship. The programme section '(D)DR' consists of a number of controversial TV shows, that have never been screened in Denmark before. The beautifully perverse centerpiece is a couple of collected reels of cut-offs spliced together from banned material through the years, almost like the ones collected in 'Cinema Paradiso'.

Retrospective: Carmelo Bene, the great Italian provocateur

Carmelo Bene is a legend of Italian experimental theatre but less known as a filmmaker. But his film making is no less visionary. With a penetrating insight and lots of wit, Bene's cinema bombastically challenges the history of art, and explores elements from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, classical painting and opera. We will be showing all of his five feature films from 'Our Lady of the Turks' (1968) through 'One Hamlet Less' (1973).

Epidemics, tunnels and zombies on location

Over the years, we have specialized in creating new surroundings and contexts for cult films and genre classics. This year we invite the bravest festival guests to join us as we go down under with a screening of the new Australian found footage spine tingler 'The Tunnel' in the creepiest tunnels underneath Copenhagen. For those who prefer their chills above ground, this year is the final chapter of our George A. Romero trilogy of the Dead-events. We take the undead classic 'Night of the Living Dead' to a desolate location outside the city. Lars Von Triers early and very charming tongue-in-cheek take on meta horror 'Epidemic' gets an illustrated (and gross) introduction about the Danish history of epidemics at The Medical Museion.

LIVE - Stereo Total and Kría Brekkan: Scoring Pinku Porn and a Silent Movie

Synth-kitsch genre breakers Stereo Total are playing at this years PIX. The wonderfully crazy German-French duo has tried a lot of things, but we are pretty sure that 'Underwater Love' is the first soundtrack they've created for a Japanese soft porn starring a Kappa. For those who don't know, that's a mythological creature half human half turtle - and yes, it does have sex. We also proudly present Kría Brekkan who is well known for her unique solo work and as the former front figure of the Icelandic electronic-acoustic band múm. She will be performing her original score for the 1928 Jean Epstein eerie silent masterpiece 'The Fall of the House of Usher', based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story.