Biography
Phie Ambo
Phie Ambo (born 1973) was trained at the National Film School of Denmark, graduating as a documentary film director in 2003. Famous for her feature-length documentary films true to the tradition of poetic, personal and cinematic language, Ambo deals with essential topics such as family relations, love, creative processes and artificial life. Phie Ambo has directed a number of award-winning films for the cinema, including major works such as Family (2001), Gambler (2005) Mechanical Love (2007), Free the Mind (2012) Good Things Await (2014) and Rediscovery (2017).
Ambo is interested in working thematic and has made a trilogy called “Mind & Matter” that looks at the relation between human existence and science.
This trilogy includes Mechanical Love, Free the Mind and … when you look away. Ambo just finished her latest trilogy about humans relation to nature called Human Nature which includes Good Things Await, Rediscovery and Organized Wildness.
For the past ten years Ambo has focused her work on the climate and biodiversity crisis and she is currently doing a research project on the National Film School about how to make new narratives that encourage the audience to take action in the climate and biodiversity crisis.
Filmography
Fire Water Earth Air (2026)
Organized Wilderness (2022)
70/30 (2021)
Rediscovery (2019)
When You Look Away (2017)
Songs From the Soil (2014)
Good Things Await (2014)
The Bailiff (2013)
Free the Mind (2012)
The Home Front (2010)
Mechanical Love (2007)
Fever (2007)
Gambler (2005)
The Diver Inside Me (2003)
Growing Up in a Day (2002)
Family (2001)
Festivals & Awards
70/30 (2021)
Selected festivals:
CPH:DOX / Denmark / Opening film
Rediscovery (2019)
Selected festivals:
CPH:DOX / Denmark
München Documentary Festival / Germany
Dokufest Prizren / Serbia
Awards:
München Documentary Festival 2019: Arri Amira Award
When You Look Away (2017)
Selected festivals:
CPH:DOX / Denmark
Toronto, Hot Docs Int. Documentary Festival / Canada
Warszawa, Against Gravity / Poland
Sheffield Doc/Fest / Great Britain
Seoul, EBS International Documentary Festival / South Korea
Bergen International Film festival / Norway
Reykjavik Film Festival / Iceland
Paris Science Film Festival / France
Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival / Czech Republic
Amsterdam, IDFA / The Netherlands
Helsinki Doc Point Documentary Film Festival / Finland
Tallinn, DocPoint
Lates release
FIRE, WATER, EARTH, AIR
The film Fire, Water, Earth, Air takes us to four Nordic communities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands — including the small Danish island of Skarø. The film explores what happens when crisis moves close to home, and when the most important form of preparedness turns out to be neighbourliness: the people living right next door, and the sense of community we share across the Nordic region.
All titels
