The Copenhagen-based event takes place October 23 to November 1st.

Debut director Anita Beikpour will present her documentary Prelle-In My Own Voice for which she won a Nordic Talents Best Pitch Award in 2017.

Beikpour is among the new voices presented at MIX CPH where 15 out of 45 feature length films screening are directorial debuts.

Her film Prelle-In My Own Voice (previously known as I Believe I Can Fly) produced by Good Company Pictures, is a portrait of charismatic and non-conformist rapper Prelle at a time where she tries to find a new meaning in her life, trapped between her dreams and societal expectations.

Two other recent Nordic documentaries are screening at Mix: Denmark’s Silence and Swords by Malthe Wermuth Saxer about two young transgender men who explore male identity, and Sweden’s Always Amber by Hannah Reinikainen and Lia Kim Hietala about non-binary Amber who grapples with her tumultuous teenage years. The film produced by Story AB world premiered at Berlin’s Panorama section this year.

Also headlining the Nordic focus at MIX CPH is the popular ‘Nordic Lights’ short programme. “We’re very proud to play a major role in promoting Nordic LBGTI films and have been a leading platform for the past 35 years,” told festival programmer and director Andrea Coloma to nordicfilmandtvnews.com. “This year, besides special anniversary tributes to queer cinema, we’re looking at improving gender representation and supporting the next generation of queer talents with a new Industry Weekend,” says Coloma. “The idea is to offer a unique meeting place where industry professionals such as organisations, festivals, distributors and producers can meet.”

The brand new Queering the Pitch session (Sunday 27) will present 6 pitchers, competing for the DKK 20,000 cash prize on top of DKK 50,000 worth of film equipment rental from Odense Filmvækstedet.

The pitching will be accompanied by the talk ‘How to pitch’ where newcomers will be introduced to the art of pitching by Patricia Bbaale Bandak - last year’s Nordic Talents Best Pitch Winner with her project Better I Go Suffer, and Rikke Kolding, director of the webseries Ondt i Røven.

Another panel –‘How to Get Your Queer Foot in the Door’ will bring together established director Ester Martin Bergsmark (Something Must Break, She Male Snails) with fellow director Mathias Broe (Robert winner Best Short for Amfi), festival director Andrea Kuhn (Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival), screenwriter/producer Paulina Lorenz and actor Tyler Luke Cunningham who will all share their experiences in navigating the film industry.

Meanwhile Young LGBTI people in the Nordics and how they are represented on screen will be the topic of another seminar on Saturday October 24, arranged in collaboration with the Nordic Council of Ministers. The session to be streamed live, will try to analyse if the on-screen representation is accurate, useful or not.

Results from similar discussions to be held in Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland, will be used for a Nordic Council Think Tank paper to improve the conditions for gender equality in the Nordics.

Coloma believes young LGBTI people are still largely under-represented in Nordic films. “In Iceland you’ve had great films like Heartstone or Let Me Fall, but Denmark doesn't really have any if you look into feel-good youth LGBTI films in the Nordics, you have to go back to Lukas Moodysson's Fucking Åmål."
 "I feel optimist though”, she adds, “as we do discuss queerness, with new platforms like our Mix Industry Weekend, and we are seeing a new generation of talents with interesting works, many present at our festival -from Mathias Broe (Amfi) Tone Ottilie (Babydyke) Patricia Bbaale Bandak (Women of Water), Anita Beikpour (Prelle In My Own Voice) to Malthe Wermuth Saxer (Silence and Swords).”

For more information check the MIX CPH website: CLICK HERE.