Jon Bang Carlsen

Dreaming Arizona (2022)

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 Ari ...

The Banality of Grief (2021)

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, ...

Déjà vu (2015)

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 ...

Cats in Riga (2015)

While current events are being discussed in the news and the residents of Riga are plagued by their everyday worries, cats are fully occupied with aimlessly wandering around staircases, offices, and apartments, completely indifferent to the absurd hustle a ...

Over the Roads, Over the River (2014)

Seven versions of Riga, the city on the Baltic Sea, and its features as seen by outstanding European film directors: Sergei Loznitsa (The Old Jewish Cemetery), Ivars Seleckis (On Ķīpsala), Audrius Stonys (Riga Boats), Jaak Kilmi (Littering Prohibited!), ...

Just the Right Amount of Violence (2013)

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 t ...

Blinde engle (2007)

Portrait of God (2001)

Portrait of God is a documentary road movie about the manhunt for the most wanted person in the world. The film is constructed as a classic detective story. A middle-aged detective shadows the suspect through the highs and lows of South African society unt ...

My African Diary (1999)

The film follows Hjalmar and Simon, the director's sons, on a journey of discovery through a foreign land. The family has moved to South Africa, not long after the end of the rigid white apartheid regime, which brutally oppressed the country's black popula ...

Addicted to Solitude (1999)

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 st ...

How to Invent Reality (1996)

Jon Bang Carlsen's essay about his way of approaching reality with a camera. Following the filming of "It's Now or Never", the story of an Irish bachelor's quest for love, Jon Bang Carlsen elaborates on how he manipulates reality in order to get to the cor ...

It's Now or Never (1996)

On the windswept planes of the Burren, fifty-something bachelor Jimmy McEvoy spends his days constructing dry stone walls and waiting for a call from the matchmaker, as he muses on life and love. ...

Carmen & Babyface (1995)

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. ...

Baby Doll (1988)

A young woman goes on a vacation at an old farm, which once belonged to her deceased grandmother. Childhood traumas and the memories of her strict and authoritarian grandmother haunts the young woman and leads her to scary delusions and a mental breakdown. ...

Time Out (1988)

Drama about a young Dane who has traveled to America to find the father he can hardly remember. In New Mexico he gets to know the daughter of a political-religious fanatic who runs a "survival school". The young Dane is interested in the girl and admits to ...

Ophelia Comes to Town (1985)

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. ...

Phoenix Bird (1984)

A staged documentary about an American ex-Vietnam soldier who teaches other Americans - men, women, children - to use weapons to defend themselves and obtain the possibility to say: "NO". ...

Next Stop - Paradise (1980)

A former army officer befriends an elderly, poorly, lady and encourages her to enjoy reminiscing about her youthful days. ...

Jenny (1977)

The 76 year old Jenny Jespersen lives in Bovbjerg byt the west coast of Jutland in Denmark. She has a sober approach to life and a strong Christian faith. "A human with faith is like a bird without wings", she says. Poeticly the film shows Jenny and her ev ...

Lovely Is the Blue Sky (1975)

In the lead-up to Christmas 1974, an army of about seventy Santa Clauses, male and female, paraded through the city of Copenhagen, singing carols, handing out sweets and hot chocolate, and asking everyone what they wanted for Christmas. After spending a f ...

Déjà vu (2015)

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 ...

Født til Filmen (2015)

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 ...

Portrait of God (2001)

Portrait of God is a documentary road movie about the manhunt for the most wanted person in the world. The film is constructed as a classic detective story. A middle-aged detective shadows the suspect through the highs and lows of South African society unt ...

Addicted to Solitude (1999)

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 st ...

How to Invent Reality (1996)

Jon Bang Carlsen's essay about his way of approaching reality with a camera. Following the filming of "It's Now or Never", the story of an Irish bachelor's quest for love, Jon Bang Carlsen elaborates on how he manipulates reality in order to get to the cor ...

The Boys from St. Petri (1991)

A group of school-mates form a resistance group in nazi-occupied Denmark. ...

The Element of Crime (1984)

Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of cr ...

Dreams Don't Make Noise When They Die (1979)

It has hardly been seen before that a 83-year-old actor has starred in a Danish film, but it is the case here, where Kai Holm says goodbye to a long life in film and theater service. He plays an old peasant who on his deathbed is waiting for his son (Jon B ...

Achilleshælen er mit våben (1979)

Clemens has escaped from prison. The first thing he does is seek out his wife Maria. He dreams of the two of them traveling away, but Maria does not want to. In the end, he leaves using his friend's passport. ...