This guest report comes courtesy of long-time Film Junk reader and contributor Henrik Seehuusen.

Greetings fellow film junkies. I was lucky enough (well, I paid for everything, so had nothing to do with luck really) to attend the International Documentary Film Festival of Copenhagen, hiply named CPH:DOX. This was the 5th year it came and went, and the 2nd year that I have been on board for the magical journey into the world of documentaries. The festival pretty much collects documentaries released all throughout the year-ish, and sometimes they even include older stuff. This year for example there was a program dedicated to the documentaries of Andy Warhol, of which I attended none unfortunately. I did however, attend 6 screenings, that I will talk about in this little article.

All In This Tea (Dir. Les Blank & Gina Leibrecht)
The first movie I saw on the first day of the festival. Projection issues. This seems to be a pretty common problem for festivals here, so it’s something you come to expect, but it still managers to piss me off. Thankfully this was not an evening showing so there wasn’t the added factor of a crowded theater of morons chattering to further ruin my hopes for an enjoyable experience. Anyway, after about 15 minutes of delay we are finally introduced to the movie. I had seen Blanks Werner Herzog movies previously, and this movie was very similar to those, in that it focuses on letting the subject at hand unfold itself on screen. In this case it is David Lee Hoffman who is an American man, who loves tea and has created a business for himself, going to China and selecting the best natural teas directly from the farmers and transporting it back to America. Throughout the movie we see both his journey through the country of China, with some great imagery to follow which is of course captured in Les Blanks rag-tag style of hand held camera just seemingly plotting along with the world, and also the journey of tea itself from the fields and into the various stages of production. This was to me the most interesting part of the movie, because I did not really find David Lee Hoffman to be that interesting. I was not bored per say, but there was times where I found myself slightly uninterested. I feel like the guy going to a concert just wanting to hear the single, but I do feel in my heart that the movie could have had more Werner Herzog drinking tea, since his little scene was pretty genius. If you have any interest in tea at all, I don’t even drink the thing anymore, there is no way you can avoid this movie though. It was good for me, it will be a fantastic experience for any tea-lover. (2.5/4)

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Forever (Dir. Heddy Honigmann)
A movie about a cemetery in Paris, the people who lay there, and the people who visit their graves. This movie was remarkably good. There are a lot of famous artists buried in this particular cemetery, and hearing people explain why they go to their graves to leave their signs of affection and respect is not only entertaining, but very moving as well. There are some great stories to be told, and you realize just how personal something that is essentially universal can be. At one point the director is asked what she’s doing and she says she’s making a movie about what art means to people. That is a perfect description of the movie, and even though there obviously is no answer to that question, the exploration of it is both innovative and highly intriguing. There are some great scenes in this movie, like blind people watching movies, and actually critiquing them in a meaningful way! But the movie is also a study in death, what it means and how it affects the living. There are some really tough scenes to watch, not only emotionally, but also affecting you physically, because you know it’s all real. This is one of the better documentaries I have ever seen. (3.5/4)

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Det Røde Kapel (The Red Chapel)* (Dir. Mads Brügger)
I didn’t really know what to expect from this movie. It’s a TV series about a comedy troupe going to North Korea to perform their act in this enigmatic and unrelatable country. This version was basically all the episodes put together. The protagonists are the director, and two comedians of which one is a spastic. Both of them however, are adopted from South Korea (North Korea doesn’t allow adoption in or out of the country, it is not honorable). They want to perform a wacky show, and watching the Korean process of art being shaped is really interesting. The best parts of the movie though, and the ones where they are out visiting various places in North Korea, particularly the school they are working with on the production. Seeing how this country is just about the most fucked up, 1984*Infinity kind of society is both mind blowing, and also heartbreaking. It is obvious that the participants of the project are deeply affected as well by the surroundings, and that they have a hard time accepting the environment they find themselves in. The spastic steals the show, showing a surprising articulation and a real emotional investment in everything he does, that rubs off on you as a viewer. There are scenes in this movie that still makes me shiver. (3.5/4)

*This was a rough cut however. Like I said it was originally produced as a TV series, and the makers have been trying to find financing to edit it down to a movie. The director, cinematographer and one of the ’stars’ were present at the screening, and there was a Q&A with the director afterwards. He mentioned that a company in France had just agreed to finance the project, so a feature length documentary should be coming out in about a years time. The Q&A in general was a nice surprise, and definitely added a lot to the experience.

Global Metal (Dir. Scot McFadyen & Sam Dunn)
Riding on the coattails of his success ‘Metal: A Headbangers Journey’ (hereby known as HJ) Sam Dunn is the star of a new metal picture, with a different issue to explore. Various metal fans around the globe, and how metal has evolved in cultures that are drastically different. This movie can be watched on its own, but is definitely a sequel to HJ, in that it starts with literally the same shot. This time there are not as many interviews with metal icons and figureheads, and more focus on the people who love metal in various places of the world. Of course it has a fucking badass soundtrack once again, with some crazy bands you probably have never heard of (Sex Machineguns from Japan was probably the best name) that still manage to rock your fuckin’ face off. For me personally one of the highlights was seeing Japanese businessmen still dresses in their suit and ties, meeting (possibly in secret) in a small underground bar, to listen to a jukebox play metal and headbang like there’s no fucking tomorrow. The most profound thing about the movie took place in Dubai. This is where the only metal festival of the middle east is held, and in a lot of countries in the middle east with their theocracies and various other dictatorships, access to metal is highly restricted or completely banned. Even so, there are metal fans in these countries who live a daily life of suppression and restriction from doing what they love the most. There are some great stories about how metal has evolved in all sorts of countries, in all sorts of ways, and if you love metal this is a must-see. If you do not love metal, may the goatlord eat your fucking spine. (3/4)

Zoo (Dir. Robinson Devor)
This movie has been reviewed on the site ages ago, so I will be brief. I will just that I loved it, it was an interesting style, that was fresh and somewhat unconventional, it was done with care and a sense of respectability that is hard to find when dealing with this subject. Visual in a remarkable way, and a fantastic movie. This really shows how much growth and development documentary film is going through these years. People are trying to expand the medium, stretch and experiment with the artform, much more so than any other filmmaking. (3/4)

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Helvetica (Dir. Gary Hustwit)
This swiss movie features a study in typefonts, visual design and globalisation all in one. It features a lot of different talking heads, dealing with all sorts of elements to both type font design, utilization and innovation. It has some great points about all of these things, all of which I personally find interesting even though I know nothing about graphic design, and it has some of the most passionate people I have ever seen in any movie or in real life. There are some fantastic personalities that get to share their deep passion in front of the camera, and there are moments in this film that are among some of my all time favorites in cinema. The amount of people is extensive, and covers a lot of different views on graphic design, with examples to boot. I heard some people from the industry was very delighted that all of the different points of view in graphic design was covered by the movie, but I admit to feeling that it was a bit too long, and that a couple of the artists could have been cut out. There was great music in this movie, and there were plenty of scenes just showing examples of Helvetica the typefont being used in all sorts of different ways all throughout the world, in both significant and unsignificant ways and places. It was very fun to see, and really gave you an idea of why this particular typefont was worthy of an entire documentary based around it and named after it. This movie was another great one, and one of my favorite documentaries. (3.5/4)

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– Henrik Seehuusen