Björk announces “limited” global cinema release of ‘Cornucopia’ concert film

Björk has announced that her new concert film Cornucopia will be getting a “limited release” in theatres globally. Find out the details below.

• READ MORE: Björk: “First you create a universe with sound, then you move into it”

The news of the upcoming release was shared today (March 20) and comes in collaboration with Mercury Studios. It is set to arrive on May 7 and is described as capturing the magic of the singer’s most elaborate live performance to date.

It will be available in approximately 500 cinemas in over 25 countries – including Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the US and the UK. The release in Spain will come the next day, while release dates in Canada and France will be on May 9 and 11 respectively.

The Cornucopia concert tour ran from May 2019 to December 2023 and was comprised of 45 shows across North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia. Based on Björk’s studio albums ‘Utopia’ (2017) and later incorporating ‘Fossora’ (2022), it was a music and theatre hybrid, featuring direction from the acclaimed Argentine filmmaker Lucretia Martel.

For the theatre release, the footage has a run time of one hour and 39 minutes, and also comes with an additional screening of three music videos – each curated by the iconic Icelandic singer.

“The Cornucopia concert film offers a rare opportunity to experience the full magic of the original show in stunning 4K and Dolby Atmos in a cinematic environment, making it an unmissable event for both dedicated fans and newcomers alike,” reads a press release.

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News of the film was first shared at the start of the year, when Björk confirmed that a shortened version of the concert film would be getting its debut via an Apple TV+ livestream.

“This has been a long journey with hundreds of people helping out. I am so beyond enormously grateful to every single one of them,” she said at the time.

“I feel the modern concert film is a matriarchally friendly construct, welcomed in the current climate,” she added. “I was deeply inspired by the idea of a fully immersive experience spreading ‘Utopia’ and ‘Fossora’ into fully surround speakers. My intention was to bring what we had created for 21st-century VR into a 19th-century theatre – taking it from the headset to the stage.”

“Throughout this tale, there is a subplot woven in: a second story of an avatar—a modern marionette who alchemically mutates, from puppet to puppet, from the injury of a heart wound to a fully healed state.”

Sharing a statement about the forthcoming theatre release, Marc Allenby, CEO of Trafalgar Releasing said: “We’re excited to bring this iconic concert, produced in stunning 4k and Dolby Atmos, to cinemas for this global event. This is a rare opportunity for fans to come together for this unique immersive experience, with additional Björk music videos, on the big screen, and we can’t wait to share it with audiences everywhere”.

Amy Freshwater, VP Content Acquisition Mercury Studios continued: “Experiencing a visual performer’s concert on the cinema screen isn’t just watching a show – it’s immersing yourself in the full scale of their artistry in the way Björk intended when designing the spectacle of ‘Cornucopia’.

“Now, through a long-standing partnership fostered by Will White, SVP of Content Sales, the film will find its rightful home on cinema screens in a collaboration with Trafalgar Releasing ahead of global sales.”

Sign up here to find out more about the release and to secure tickets.

When the live show arrived in London back in November 2019, NME gave it a four-star review and wrote: “We in turn should be thankful for an artist wild enough to take a show this audacious to a venue in which she’ll be followed, over the next two nights, by the more straightforwardly people-pleasing performances of McFly and Little Mix. This is a time where we all need to push it, to find new ways of being: like the lady herself sings in the show’s penultimate track: “Imagine a future and be in it.”

Then, in 2022 the artist spoke to NME about the changing landscape as we entered the 2020s.

“I thought we’d be doing better with environmental things,” she said. “We reacted so strongly to the COVID pandemic; all governments worked and we invented the fucking vaccine in 10 months or something. It was a miracle for seven billion people. I would hope we would react as strongly to the environment.”

“Gen Z-ers are really radical, and I’m relieved that the environment is a priority for them – I’m up for it!” she enthuses. “When I read the news, most of it won’t matter in 20 years. The only thing that really matters is how we deal with the environment.”

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