CPH:DOX 2026: The Cord (dir. Nolwenn Hervé) | Review
A moving and urgent portrait of a woman working tirelessly to patch the failures of the healthcare system, The Cord offers a raw and striking immersion into contemporary Venezuela.
After exceptional growth in the 20th century based on the exploitation of its oil resources, Venezuela has been experiencing a major economic and social crisis for the past fifteen years. One result of this lack of resources is that public infrastructure has severely deteriorated, and access to healthcare for all is now nothing more than a distant memory.
Countering this decay, Carolina, a Venezuelan citizen, moves heaven and earth every day to help women in extreme precarity who cannot access essential healthcare. With her phone always within reach, she crisscrosses the city in a minivan driven by a friend and collaborator to rescue pregnant women in need of urgent medical care. Voluntarily, and without counting her hours, she accompanies them to the hospital and provides the necessary surgical supplies, which she buys in an emergency from the nearest pharmacy or collects from a generous soul. Overwhelmed and confronted with the profound distress of the women she supports with limited means, Carolina nevertheless continues to work every day to improve the fate of her fellow citizens. It is the portrait of this modern-day heroine that director Nolwenn Hervé paints in The Cord, having its world premiere at CPH:DOX 2026 in the DOX:AWARD section.
Nolwenn Hervé’s camera follows Carolina’s frantic daily life closely, without any cinematic artifice, thereby revealing the decline of society and the inaction of public authorities. Several scenes are particularly difficult and bear witness to the cruelty these women face. One in particular is especially shocking: due to a lack of proper care, a young woman’s fetus has died, and despite the obvious medical and psychological emergency, the hospital refuses to admit her to remove the deceased fetus from her womb. Nevertheless, the director takes care not to overwhelm her characters, refusing to confine them to miserabilist representations.
By portraying a protagonist who dedicates her life to improving the condition of her fellow citizens, The Cord shares certain similarities with Subina Shrestha’s film Devi and Jonah Malak’s Spare My Bones, Coyote!. These feature-length documentaries rely on these local grassroots initiatives, which attempt to stem a systemic plague on their own scale, to denounce a tragic social reality.
CPH:DOX is currently taking place in Copenhagen from March 11 to 22, 2026.
