What are the consequences of a young person to be famous at an early age, being a public person?  "Født til Filmen" is about the Danish actress Stine Bierlich's (1967 - 2007) life and career. Through interviews with herself, with her family - Ann Bierlich (mother), Asger Leth (brother), Jørgen Leth (stepfather), friends and people from the film industry it tells us about Stine's life from being a child actress to becoming a celebrated young star of the 80's.  The film is a comment on today's worshipping of stars, and how fame has almost become a drug in itself. It’s as if here’s every answer to any doubt.  But as Stine's story shows, reality can actually be the opposite.

Født til filmen

To what extent does a director stay objective and anonymously hidden behind the camera? The Danish director Jon Bang Carlsen knows for sure that the choices he makes in his films aren’t accidental. Several excerpts from his own work show that events in his personal life have a major influence on his work. In fact, he appears to be using images that he recognizes in particular. It’s a revelation for this filmmaker, who used to think he could stay objective and invisible. Topics such as doubting his faith, his runaway father and impressions from a carefree childhood are recurring themes in his diverse oeuvre. Showing us individual scenes, Carlsen comments in voice-over on the images and muses about his life and work.

Déjà Vu

Cats in Riga

Since the 1970s, the travelling and extremely productive film poet Jon Bang Carlsen has created an extensive body of work with a creative and personal look at the world, with the staged documentary as his preferred form. When his beloved wife passes away, he reaches for filmmaking as a way to give his grief a form. ‘The Banality of Grief’ is a cinematic love letter to a loved one and to the places where they shared their lives for 35 years. South Africa, the USA, their shared home by the water. The boundaries between past and present end in an impressionistic and deeply personal film, where existential and artistic thoughts are countered by new impressions, which testify that life is the greatest of them all. Jon Bang Carlsen is a rare and precious figure in Danish cinema. An adventurer with an ever-recording camera, who directs his gaze outwards even when his thoughts are turned inwards.

The Banality of Grief

Where does the dream begin and reality end? In Dreaming Arizona, this is the question both for the central figures and for the viewer. Known for his staged documentaries, Danish director Jon Bang Carlsen has five American teenagers from a small town in Arizona reenact their own lives—past, present and future.