Marxist Millionaires and Fungal Universes: The Top Films of CPH:DOX 2026

      A few weeks back, I arrived in Copenhagen for this year’s CPH:DOX in the early evening, still slightly disoriented from covering the Oscars the night before. My plan for that evening was to attend a screening of Stillz’s Barrio Triste—the latest offering from Harmony Korine’s EDGLRD productions and, honestly, as my colleague C.J. Prince aptly pointed out in his outstanding TIFF review, the most thrilling film I’ve encountered all year—but with a few hours to kill before diving into that audio-visual experience, I opted for the comforting embrace of a bowl of noodles.

      I had my sights set on a trendy eatery, Slurp, which opened in 2017 and was founded by Philipp Ineiter, one of many local restaurateurs who transitioned from working at René Redzepi’s Noma to starting their own establishments in the city. In the weeks prior to my visit, this culinary scene had been significantly shaken by a series of allegations against Redzepi from former employees and interns (ranging from the unfortunately typical insults, produce throwings, and physical altercations to more severe accusations of sexual misconduct) who finally felt empowered to speak out after years of silence within the industry. Good for them.

      As I contemplated the wider impact of such a story on a city now recognized for its food culture—integral to both its tourism sector and self-identity—a steaming bowl of rich, dark broth with a perfectly cooked ramen clump appeared before me. The enticing aromas reminded me of a film I had watched the day prior in preparation: Ian Purnell’s Arctic Link, a mesmerizing documentary about undersea broadband cables (which, it turns out, are abundant enough to circle the Earth 32 times) and the efforts to establish one for a remote Alaskan community.

      Purnell’s documentary introduces this domain through a stylish visual montage: scenes of ships, waves, and—shoutout to Slurp—dark waters and long tubes that resonated with my recent fascination for social media accounts showcasing daunting shells and overloaded cargo ships. Having watched every entry in this year’s DOX: AWARD selection, I believed it to be the standout in the competition—an opinion not shared by the jury, who awarded the top prize to Dongnan Chen’s Whispers in May, a beautifully shot coming-of-age story set in the Liangshan Mountains of Eastern China, which commendably blurs the lines between reality and fiction. The storyline follows three charismatic teenage girls in a small town as they travel to the neighboring village to buy a dress for a rite-of-passage ceremony. It perhaps stretches the boundaries of what we term “hybrid non-fiction films”—exactly what places like CPH:DOX aim to explore.

      This year’s awards also recognized Nolwenn Hervé’s The Cord—an inspiring depiction of a women’s health clinic in Venezuela and the dedicated individuals working there, serving as an unintentional time capsule of life before the illegal capture of President Maduro earlier this January—and Nathan Grossman’s AMAZOMANIA, an engaging piece of revisionist history that begins with Swedish filmmaker Erling Söderström’s 1996 journey to meet the remote Carubo tribe in the Amazon rainforest. The film then leaps to the present, where Grossman persuades the director to revisit the locations of his earlier film, both geographically and in a way that leads to some uncomfortable realizations regarding his greatest accomplishment. It’s a wonderfully compelling piece at times, echoing the early Herzog protagonists in Söderström’s unwavering self-regard, even if it doesn't entirely come together cohesively.

      A more localized and authoritative perspective on the ecological wonders of Central America can be found in Otilia Portillo’s Daughters of the Forest – Mycelium Chronicles, a suitably trippy exploration (with sound design that triggers memories of wild nights) of the fungal realm, treating both the practical wisdom passed down by older generations and the scientific perspectives of their younger counterparts with equal respect—rightly positioning them in conversation with one another. The ecosystem threatened in Jeanie Finlay’s outstanding All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea (specifically, the local fishing industries in England’s Northeast) may be halfway across the globe from Portillo’s mushroom foragers, but its significance to the surrounding community is similarly existential. This amplifies the impact of Finlay’s heartfelt, pseudo-Loachian examination of its destruction (following decades of Tory greed and short-termism), making it all the more heartbreaking.

      The festival's hottest ticket was the European premiere of John Wilson’s The Story of Concrete, a film that encapsulates the cosmic concerns and quirky humor of Wilson’s How to series into what is essentially a superb feature-length episode. It managed to blow the roof off the 650-seat Bremen theatre even before Wilson took the stage for an almost perfectly timed Q&A with his spiritual forebear, Louis Theroux, who seamlessly shifted his tone for a presentation of The Sett