Crossing Borders: Going Transnational with "Danish" Film Training, Capacity Building, and Talent Development

In the Nordic region, broad-based, enduring commitments to film and film culture find expression in the relatively long history of institution building in the area of practice-oriented film education. Different types of film training, capacity building, and talent development ensure multiple points of access to the field of film practice. In recent years the transnationalism in question has become more pervasive and has found robust institutional articulation, through the cross-bordered activities of various training and talent development programs devoted to film. DOX:LAB was created in 2009, as an extension of the Copenhagen-based documentary film festival CPH:DOX International Documentary Film Festival. The impetus for DOX:LAB was a perception of Danish cinema as essentially a national cinema, with the very national dimension of various institutions, frameworks and traditions imposing significant constraints on talent development. DOX:LAB operates through partnerships with a variety of well-established institutions and professional fora.