CAFx x Cinemateket: Århus By Night
Join us for Big City Nights at the Cinematek rooftop as we bringing you to Århus
The film follows a young filmmaker from Aarhus on the verge of his breakthrough with his first major production—a deeply personal story inspired by his own childhood. But the shoot soon unravels: conflicts with the cast, a turbulent relationship with the Copenhagen-based film crew, and a growing attraction to his leading actress turn the production into an ordeal. What was meant to be an artistic triumph instead becomes a portrait of doubt, jealousy, and a loss of control.
For Nils Malmros, the story is closely autobiographical. Århus by Night draws directly on his own experiences during the making of Boys (Drenge) and continues the defining approach that runs through his work: drawing on personal memories and the real places of his childhood and youth in Aarhus.
In Malmros's films, Aarhus is never merely a backdrop. The city becomes a landscape of memory, where schools, streets, and neighborhoods are recreated with an almost documentary precision. As with many of his earlier films, scenes were often shot on the original locations where he himself had lived, preserving a strong sense of authenticity.
This approach makes the city an integral part of the story—not as a spectacular urban setting, but as a tangible, lived-in place where relationships and conflicts take shape. In Århus by Night, Aarhus also becomes the site of a cultural clash, contrasting the city's local reality with the perspective of the Copenhagen film crew.
About Big City Nights
Join us for Big City Nights a film screening series bringing you to metropolises across the world from a rooftop in Copenhagen.
In this series, the city is more than just a backdrop. It serves as a crossroads of fate, where people meet and their lives take new directions. Architecture, distances, and population density all shape human relationships.
The films find their mood in the tension between public and private space. In other words, these are films that don't merely take place in a recognizable city—they are fundamentally rooted in it. Like a living organism, each city has its own rhythm and logic: sometimes grand and imposing, other times chaotic and untidy.
The big city also invites a distinctly cinematic way of thinking, creating intensely sensory worlds of light, sound, and texture—traffic noise, neon signs, building façades, night and day. From iconic metropolises to less obvious destinations—yes, Aarhus is included too—Big City Nights explores how cinema has portrayed the many facets of urban life over the years.
If you've already been to Rio, you'll recognize the atmosphere. If you're dreaming of Paris, Singapore, or Barcelona, this is a great place to start. Or gather a few friends for an evening of '80s nostalgia with Aarhus by Night. These films are made to be experienced together.
An important part of the experience is that every screening takes place at Himmelbio, the open-air rooftop cinema overlooking Copenhagen. Arrive early, take in the view, and perhaps bring a drink from the Filmtaget Café inside with you.
