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.

Set in 1962 during the Berlin crisis, the contented lifestyle of Carmen and her kid brother, whom she's nicknamed Babyface, comes to an abrupt end when their parents acrimoniously separate.

Set in 1962 during the Berlin crisis, the contented lifestyle of Carmen and her kid brother, whom she's nicknamed Babyface, comes to an abrupt end when their parents acrimoniously separate.

In his new feature film Jon Bang Carlsen inserts the viewer into the affluent suburbs of Los Angeles, a world where families put on a brave face to mask the tension and turmoil at home. The kids are rebelling and the parents doesn’t know how to deal with them. With their parents consent, the children are abducted and bundled into a van which takes them to a reform school in the middle of the desert, in Utah. Blending fact with fiction, Carlsen shows us how parents sometimes achieve control by surrendering it and how fabrications can help us understand real life.

In his new feature film Jon Bang Carlsen inserts the viewer into the affluent suburbs of Los Angeles, a world where families put on a brave face to mask the tension and turmoil at home. The kids are rebelling and the parents doesn’t know how to deal with them. With their parents consent, the children are abducted and bundled into a van which takes them to a reform school in the middle of the desert, in Utah. Blending fact with fiction, Carlsen shows us how parents sometimes achieve control by surrendering it and how fabrications can help us understand real life.

During a production of "Hamlet", the withdrawn lead actor and the girl playing Ophelia, who has just escaped a life of drugs and prostitution, spark an unlikely and low-key romance.

During a production of "Hamlet", the withdrawn lead actor and the girl playing Ophelia, who has just escaped a life of drugs and prostitution, spark an unlikely and low-key romance.

I traveled to South Africa to find a white family living on a desolate farm. I wanted to film how they faced the new days of equality after the fall of Apartheid. But I soon lost my way both on the endless roads and in my way. Instead, the film became a story about two very different women who both experienced a tragic loss in the midst of a white community not too fond of the future.

I traveled to South Africa to find a white family living on a desolate farm. I wanted to film how they faced the new days of equality after the fall of Apartheid. But I soon lost my way both on the endless roads and in my way. Instead, the film became a story about two very different women who both experienced a tragic loss in the midst of a white community not too fond of the future.

I traveled to South Africa to find a white family living on a desolate farm. I wanted to film how they faced the new days of equality after the fall of Apartheid. But I soon lost my way both on the endless roads and in my way. Instead, the film became a story about two very different women who both experienced a tragic loss in the midst of a white community not too fond of the future.