Festival trailer:

Emerging

In moments of rupture, something comes to light. Something begins to emerge. What is coming into view is not new, but newly undeniable. Emergence names the process through which what was hidden becomes visible.

Across the world, something has become impossible to ignore: Systems long considered stable are revealing their fragility. Armed conflicts redraw borders and lives. In some places, bombs fall; in others, memory itself remains contested ground. War is not confined to battlefields; it reverberates through health systems, displacement and intergenerational trauma. At the same time, climate change accelerates vulnerability, reshaping patterns of disease and forced displacement.

A profound reconfiguration of global health is emerging. Systems structured around traditional funding models and geopolitical influence are becoming increasingly unstable, intensifying calls for structural transformation. Movements to decolonise global health are challenging inherited power structures. New forms of collaboration, grounded in equity and sustainability, are essential. Adaptation strategies must be co-created with the communities most affected.

This rethinking is not unprecedented. Periods of rupture have always compelled systems to evolve. Human history is not defined solely by conflict, but also by the capacity of communities to reorganise and reimagine life after disruption. Even in fractured ground, seeds take root. Flowers still find a way to sprout.

This festival turns toward what emerges when the surface fractures: What takes shape under pressure, what refuses to be rendered invisible.

Global Health Film Days brings together films and conversations that reflect this moment of transition, a moment in which global health is no longer taken for granted, but actively reshaped. This year’s festival invites audiences to consider what it means to live, organize, and care in a time of emergence.

Global Health Film Days is organised by the University of Copenhagen’s School of Global Health and Cinemateket, The Danish Film Institute. The festival is supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.