Annual Summit at CPH:CONFERENCE
Kickstarting our CPH:CONFERENCE week on 24 March 2025, 12:30 – 17:30 is the inaugural CPH:DOX Summit, bringing together politicians, innovators, researchers and documentary professionals to discuss the future of the audiovisual industry.
The day is curated by Mark Edwards, and hosted by Anna Porse Nielsen.
In the past 10 years, streamers and tech companies have had a disruptive effect on the European media landscape, creating radical change, and leading to consolidation in the private sector and calls for reform in the public sector.
In the meantime, a majority of Europeans now learn what’s going on in the real world through social media. As Europe continues to take steps towards a single digital market, several European countries are only one election away from voting for illiberal and anti-democratic leaders.
Now that democracy itself is at stake, it’s time to go beyond the polarizing narratives of the platforms, and work together to build the European media ecosystem of tomorrow.
The vibrant but fragile documentary sector has a key role to play in this brave new world, and it’s a great time for funders, programmers, regulators and independent filmmakers to put their heads together to better engage the public.
Ultimately, we are all here to serve audiences, to bring them truthful and original stories about what is happening in our world. But we can do more by teaming up with journalists, artists and thinkers to make these stories even stronger, more human and more visible, and bring them to audiences, where they are, across Europe and around the globe.
– Mark Edwards, former Head of International Coproductions at ARTE France and Director of Documentaries in Europe for Netflix
Join us and be a part of improving the future of independent and democratic media.
The summit is for invited and accredited guests only.
Programme
Welcome to the Inaugural Annual Summit
Welcome to the Annual Summit
Katrine Kiilgaard, Managing Director, CPH:DOX
Donata von Perfall, Managing Director, Documentary Campus
Anna Porse Nielsen, Head of Danish Producers Association
Opening Keynote
A fiercely independent filmmaker will evoke the potential power and importance of independent media. With Claire Simon.
Documentaries play an important role in the audiovisual landscape by offering audiences not just the facts of a story but an emotional connection to a vital human experience. They carry the promise to dig deeper and bring us closer to the truth. And it is precisely their independence, transparency and integrity that put them in a position to promote democratic discussion and debate. Policy makers can help by guaranteeing a free and diverse audiovisual landscape, where audiences continue to have trusted access to a variety of voices, experiences and stories, and filmmakers find a variety of reliable partners – both public and private – to support production and distribution.
Claire Simon is a director, screenwriter, and producer renowned for her work in both documentary and fiction filmmaking.
The State of Information in Europe
For the public, there is no going back, the digital world is here to stay. Join Christo Grozev, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, and Ingrid Libercier for a discussion on the state of our information systems in Europe.
Leading experts on news and the flow of information will exchange ideas on how to protect journalists from influence and foreign threats, how the infrastructure that they use to find and convey their findings might be improved, and how we could make the right to information a priority for citizens at the same level as health care or defense.
Christo Grozev, Lead investigator with Der Spiegel and The Insider, research fellow in open source research at Bard College.
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Professor, University of Copenhagen and Senior Research Associate, Reuters Institute, University of Oxford
Ingrid Libercier, Manager and Director of Programs at ARTE GEIE and Board Member of ARTE FRANCE.
Moderator: Sameer Padania, Director / Lead Consultant, Macroscope
How We Adapt to Disruption
How can we harness the potential of digital technologies while being clear-eyed about the risks they pose?
From the standpoint of regulation, and in the face of AI’s disruptive effects on trustworthy information and copyright protection, it’s very hard to know whether to sound the alarm or find ways to better enforce existing rules. Policy makers do their best work when they combine deep knowledge of the latest transformations while keeping in mind the interests of society and democratic debate.
Keynote: Media Accessibility as a Human Right
A special keynote from Baroness Helena Kennedy, KC, opens the second part of the afternoon.
What if we look at the question from the perspective of the citizen spectator? Should the right to free and fair information, to a variety of sources, stories and voices, be considered a fundamental human right? A leading legal mind reflects on the implications of a new “bill of rights for audiences”.
Baroness Helena Kennedy KC is one of the UK’s most distinguished lawyers. Member of the Bar, a King’s Counsel, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and the Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. She was granted life peerage in 1997.
Are we Putting Money in the Right Places?
In this new digital landscape, are we putting our resources in the right places? Funds and broadcasters come together to discuss the best path forwards for reaching audiences with the best audiovisual content.
Public broadcasters and film funds are busy navigating these changes, season by season, film by film. As they look into the future, how are they redefining their role and reinforcing their position as trusted sources of information and promoters of creativity and democratic debate? How can they better share rights and distribution networks?
How Can We Get Closer to Audiences?
For the past 30 years, independent media has grown and flourished globally. As a revelatory study in the US shows, there is an an audience out there wanting an improved choice. We join the study's author, Keri Putnam, in conversation with Artur Liebhart and Matthias Pfeffer to see how we reach these audiences.
How do independent films actually make their way to audiences and how much impact do they have? Today, we have the data and capacity to know much more about audiences and how to connect them with the variety of choices they are clamoring for.
Keri Putnam, Co-Founder of ReFrame and former CEO of Sundance Institute
Artur Liebhart, Founder of Against Gravity, and Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival
Matthias Pfeffer, Founding & Managing Director Council for European Public Space (CfEPS)
Moderator: Danielle Turkov Wilson, Founder & CEO at Think-Film Impact Productions
Soapbox: Visions for the Future
Four filmmakers in the audience express their recommendations for the future, joining forces in an open call for a more secure, open, and independent audiovisual future.
Round off the day with a participatory session, where thoughts, ideas, and inspiration from the day is gathered and conceived through the perspecives of four filmmakers, who share what they would like to see happen in the media landscape in the years to come.
Moderator: Beadie Finzi, Co-director of Doc Society
Closing remarks
Curator Mark Edwards and host Anna Porse Nielsen wrap up the first inaugural Summit.
