After his own disguise as the manager of a vaudeville act in The Red Chapel, a fake diplomat in The Ambassador, or Tintin in Congo look-alike in Cold Case Hammarskjöld, Denmark’s one-and-only Mads Brügger, known for his unique performative journalism, is set to film real faux- semblants in Body Trouble.

The project is described in an official synopsis as a feature length doc “about the secretive world of political decoys.“ The film is said to “explore how various dictators and strongmen have been using doubles as stand-ins for themselves.”

Brügger’s intention is to find “as many former real-life political decoys as possible, and bring them all together for a lavish dinner at a luxury hotel, where they will be in character as their old masters.”

The director’s entertaining mock-up unveiled to CPH:FORUM delegates had body doubles of Panama’s former ruler Noriega, commenting on the General’s well-known use of black magic and red underwear to ward off the "evil eye", and a stand-up for former Libyan Colonel Gaddafi revealing his ‘boss’s trouble with haemorrhoids, taste for Louis Vuitton sun glasses, Beethoven and literary passion for Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Commenting on anecdotal facts uncovered during research, Brügger said he found out that to discredit Indonesia’s former dictator Suharto, the CIA had produced a pornographic film called Happy Days, using a porn actor as body double, and during the Vietnam peace accords, Henry Kissinger hired doubles supposedly “to confuse the media.”

The project in development will be produced by the director’s regular partners, Denmark’s Peter Engel of Wingman Media, with Norwegian co-producers Piraya Film and Hinterland, both involved in Brügger’s previous works, Sundance Best-Directing World Doc winner Cold Case Hammarskjöld and series The Mole.

Commenting on the project, expert Alexandra Hannibal of CNN Films said she liked the idea of “getting to know world figures through idiosyncrasies”, and the film’s potential “look at politics with a cheeky wink.”

During CPH:FORUM’s opening day, 11 international works in development were pitched online by their directors and/or producers, including Sweden’s The Woman Who Cleaned the World directed by Fia-Stina Sandlund for Story AB. The creative documentary from US-based Swedish director will contain a triple intertwined narrative about iconic Swedish filmmaker Mai Zetterling, her unfinished film about cleaner/author Maja Ekelöf, and Sandlund herself doing research in France. The project produced by Malin Hüber and Tobias Janson has received development support from the Swedish Film Institute.

CPH:FORUM lasts until Friday April 30.