Municipality of Esbjerg / Visit Ribe
A short film about the Danish town Ribe’s famous pride, Jakob A. Riis, produced for the local museum in connection with the town’s 1300th anniversary.
The legendary Danish-American Jacob A. Riis was one of the 19th century’s most innovative journalists and the father of modern documentary photography.
Tormented by unrequited love, Jacob Riis emigrated from Denmark to the United States in 1870 and ended up as the very definition of the American dream. His good friend and President at the time, Theodore Roosevelt, called him ‘an ideal American’.
But before that, Riis had to work his way up from scratch as a drifter, a shipwright, an iron salesman and more.
He went on to become recognised as one of America’s most significant social revolutionaries, and in his book ‘How the Other Half Lives’, he documented, through photographs and text, the plight of immigrants living in New York’s slums.
This little film is wrapped in an incredible love story.
“The amazing journey of Jacob A. Riis” is a winner at Luleå International Film Festival in Sweden, at Couch Film Festival in Canada, at KinoDrome Festival in the US, at Sittannavasal International Film Festival in India, and it has been nominated at Korea International Short Film Festival, at Seoul International Extreme-short Image & Film Festival, and at Busan New Wave Short Film Festival in Korea, at BSFF in Australia, at Film Olympiad in Greece, and at Lift-Off Global Network, at Tournadeau Film Festival, at Aphrodite Film Awards, at Lane Doc Fest, and at FilmOneFest in the US.
