The competition films for the 66th edition of DOK Leipzig have been finalised. The schedule of films is now complete. A total of 71 films, including 35 world premieres, are competing for the Golden and Silver Doves this year.

“Quite a few films made during the pandemic had a personal angle. This year, the films have gone back to looking at broader societal and political themes – partly in order to understand what’s going on at the moment and explore how we can work towards a different future,” festival director Christoph Terhechte observes.

The International Competition Documentary Film includes 10 feature-length films and 13 short films from such countries as Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Croatia, Madagascar, the Philippines, Serbia, South Korea and Ukraine. The productions include debut films as well as works by established filmmakers. Peter Mettler reflects on life cycles and human existence in “While the Green Grass Grows”. Nikolaus Geyrhalter presents the world premiere of his latest film, “The Standstill”, which observed the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vienna from March 2020 to December 2021. In “The Wages of John Pernia”, Ben Young explores a homosexual love story in the Wild West. “Beauty and the Lawyer” tells the story of a young Armenian family who attempt to assert a queer normality for themselves and others. In “Kumva – Which Comes from Silence”, survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda address their traumatic experiences. And “Where Zebus Speak French” visits a Malagasy village community that is resisting a construction project motivated by capitalist greed.

The International Competition Animated Film features 27 productions from Germany, Canada, Colombia, India, Spain, Taiwan and elsewhere. Five works are competing for the Golden Dove for a feature-length animated film. In the hybrid film “Johnny & Me”, a graphic artist immerses herself in the satirical work of the anti-fascist photomontage artist John Heartfield. “Knit’s Island” also straddles the line between documentary and animated film. In footage shot entirely within an online game, the filmmakers conduct interviews with the other players inside a virtual dystopia. “No Changes Have Taken in Our Life” tells the story of a sousaphone player’s difficulty in finding work in China after graduating from music school. Two different coming-of-age stories are told in “Tender Metalheads” and “When Adam Changes”. While the heavy-metal fans find friendship and refuge through their shared passion for their music, Adam notices how criticism of his appearance actually transforms his body. The feature-length animated film “Sultana’s Dream”, in which a young Spanish woman goes on a journey of discovery to the utopian land of women, will be screened out of competition.

The German Competition Documentary Film includes 8 short and 9 feature-length documentaries, many of which offer new perspectives on subjects that are often discussed in society. “Sick Girls” deals with ADHD in adulthood; its female perspective is quite intentional. Drawing upon her own heritage, Grit Lemke portrays the still vibrant culture of the Sorbs in the film “We Call Her Hanka”. “One Hundred Four” documents a rescue at sea in the Mediterranean in real time. “Home Sweet Home” uncovers a story of domestic violence that is invisible in the idyllic family life captured in old Super 8 footage. Also hidden for a long time are the cases of abuse in a Protestant children’s home, which “The Children of Korntal” recounts. Three films (“Make Up the World”, “Togoland Projections” and “Showhouse”) deal in different ways with Germany’s colonial past and its remnants in the present day.

Eight feature-length documentaries have been nominated for the Audience Competition. Some of these films have already made a name for themselves at major international film festivals; examples include “A Still Small Voice” (Sundance) and “Eat Bitter” (Hot Docs and others). In “Bye Bye Tiberias”, which was screened at the Venice Film Festival, actress Hiam Abbass (“Succession”, “Blade Runner 2049”) takes her daughter back to the Palestinian village she once called home. Other films in the competition tell true crime stories (“The Gullspång Miracle”), face repressed traumas (“The Mother of All Lies” and “My Father, Nour and I”), follow an 84-year-old female DJ (“Vika!”) and look behind the scenes of Italian beach holidays (“Vista Mare”).

The “Camera Lucida – Out of Competition” section groups together five films with strong signature styles that challenge the conventions of cinema. Jim Finn returns to the festival with “The Apocalyptic Is the Mother of All Christian Theology”, a humorous, psychedelic montage concerning the impact of the apostle Paul. In “Man in Black”, the composer Wang Xilin, who performs nude, confronts the cruelty of the communist regime in China. “The Tuba Thieves” explores the meaning of sound and hearing; “Feet in Water, Head on Fire” brings together the past and the present in its contemplation of Californian date palms; and in “Play Dead!” Matthew Lancit uses first-person body horror to confront his fear of the consequences of having diabetes.

The film selection can be found in the PDF file of the press release (see above)

"Nowhere Is Only Somewhere" - under this title DOK Neuland invites you to join us again this year at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig to face the pressing questions of our time with extended reality works. The ten selected works reflect many themes that also characterize this year's documentaries and animated films at the festival. They address war, colonialism and repression, also as patriarchal and heteronormative abuses of power. Many of the works also lead deep into discriminatory and racist narratives that – consciously or unconsciously – are still being reproduced

Against the gravity of such structures, DOK Neuland presents works that are an invitation to open up to others, to share thoughts and to form collective identity. Their immersive nature allows for experiences without the distance to the screen. After DOK Neuland 2021 encountered chaos as an opportunity ("Chaos Is a Condition") and 2022 was under the sign of militant refusal ("THX 4 Nothing"), this year's exhibition throws down the gauntlet once again with "Nowhere Is Only Somewhere" in the knowledge of the feat of strength that every utopia requires. The audience is invited to witness, to feel community, and to take collective responsibility for ensuring that no fate is forgotten. "DOK Neuland does not offer to contemplate in immersive worlds. Instead, we call for exiting the matrix in our minds," says Rummel. "In the end, despite everything and perhaps because we have little left to stand on, we remain hopeful."

DOK Neuland is free of charge. The exhibition takes place with thanks to Lars Rummel (curation), Marie Hinkelmann and Johanna Gerlach (production). As with previous years, the scenography was created in collaboration with artist Paula Gehrmann.

New storytelling and exciting projects at industry events DOK Exchange and Prototyping Lab

DOK Exchange XR, DOK Leipzig’s exhilarating programme on interactive and immersive storytelling with a focus on XR works, will take place on Festival Friday, 13 October. The DOK Exchange XR programme, consisting of XR Conference and XR Showcase, this year will explore new explosive possibilities that generative AI unlocks for XR and documentary storytelling. The programme will further focus on the use of AI tools and opportunities and risks associated with it, the topic of AI-user generated content in the context of XR prototyping and AR in the development of site-specific documentary storytelling, among other topics.

At XR Conference (13 October at 11:00 – 14:30, online and onsite at Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig), a number of invited speakers will examine various aspects of XR development and new directions for XR storytelling in the context of generative AI. At XR Showcase (invitation only, online), a selection of groundbreaking XR projects in development will be presented in front of an online audience. The presentation, moderated by Brigid O’Shea, will be followed by a session of feedback from some 20 experts across the disciplines. The 2023 XR Showcase project selection will be announced soon.

In collaboration with DOK Leipzig’s DOK Exchange, the European Creators’ Lab is holding its Prototyping Lab on 9 October - 13 October in Leipzig. The 5-day Lab will offer a platform for intensive knowledge exchange, helping producers and creators seeking to propel their immersive projects forward further work on their technical prototypes, and connecting them with creative technologists, digital masters and other talent in immersive production. 

The selected works at DOK Neuland can be found in the PDF file of this press release (see above).

DOK Leipzig’s freshly announced DOK Industry programme features a panel that brings renewed attention to exiled Belarusian documentary filmmakers amid the country’s escalating political climate and curbs on (artistic) freedom. The dedicated panel “Displaced by Dictatorship and War: Belarusian Independent Filmmakers in Europe” will be held on Monday, 9 October, at 13:00 at Propsteikirche St. Trinitatis.

The discussion will take place with the participation of the recently launched Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA) and will shed light on the current state of Belarusian independent documentary cinema, address challenges faced by exiled Belarusian documentary filmmakers and those still living and working in the country, and discuss how to support fellow Belarusian colleagues through funding, festivals, and partnerships with European film institutes.

Among the panellists are film producer, director, and programme director of the Belarusian independent film festival Northern Lights Volia Chajkouskaya (who is currently based in Estonia) and German director Juliane Tutein. Chajkouskaya and Tutein will discuss how to film in and about Belarus since the country has been plunged into turmoil in the wake of 2020. Louis Beaudemont (Les Steppes Productions) will further join Chajkouskaya in addressing how to support Belarusian documentary filmmakers in exile. Beaudemont and Alice Syrakvash have co-launched a series of events in a bid to support Belarusian cinema in France and Europe. Chajkouskaya, film director Andrei Kutsila (“When Flowers Are Not Silent”) and film critic, cultural observer, and journalist Irena Kaciałovič will also present the work of BIFA during the panel.

BIFA was launched in February 2022, when filmmakers and other members of the Belarusian film community decided to form an organisation that advocates for independent Belarusian filmmakers, promotes their interests and gives them a platform to speak in a unified voice. Among the founding members of BIFA are Chajkouskaya, film directors Kutsila, Darya Zhuk (“Crystal Swan”) and Aliaksei Paluyan (“Courage”), senior programmer Ihar Sukmanau and film critic Kaciałovič.

The creation of BIFA came as Belarusian filmmakers continue to face hostility and threats to their lives and freedoms as Aliaksandr Lukashenka cracks down on opposition voices and stifles dissent. Many filmmakers and industry professionals, who have been spearheading the resistance, have been forced to flee to Europe and are now in exile. BIFA thus also serves as an alternative to Belarusian state-sponsored film organisations. The organisation was born in the wake of the war in Ukraine, when more than 130 Belarusian filmmakers and industry professionals signed a collective statement denouncing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This year’s Industry Programme features a wide range of events that bolster creative exchange and create a space for filmmakers to connect with other industry professionals, showcase their projects and find potential collaborators. Among the highlights of the Industry Programme is Short n’ Sweet (11 October), the festival’s short film pitch, which will see eight film professionals present their short documentary, animated documentary, animated film and series projects. Following the inaugural edition of DOK Archive Market last year, the second edition will offer opportunities for attending filmmakers to learn about the libraries of exhibiting archives and meet with archive researchers and producers. Find further events in the Industry Programme online.

Find the full programme here: DOK Industry Programme A-Z

All dates and events: DOK Industry Schedule

This year, several programmes at DOK Leipzig are once again focusing on central and eastern European film, which have a strong historical connection to the festival.

DOK Leipzig is giving central and eastern European film a platform in a section titled “Panorama: Central and Eastern Europe”. Many of the films in this section reflect Russia’s influence and the threat of Russian imperialism. The short and feature-length films that are being shown include works from Estonia, Georgia, Croatia, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic, with several world premieres among them. The section includes a portrayal of the courageous and undaunted activists in Belarus (“Who, If Not Us? The Fight for Democracy in Belarus”) as well of as the opposition to Putin’s regime in Russia prior to the invasion of Ukraine (“The Last Relic”). The backdrop of Tito-era Yugoslavia drives the narrative in a philosophical retrospective (“The Box”) and in Kharkiv, a 12-year-old who experiences the nightmare of wartime from an underground station struggles to find the miracle of hope (“Photophobia”).

Slovenia, the Guest of Honour at the 2023 Frankfurt Book Fair, will be featured in a festival compilation titled “Focus: Post-1991 Slovenian Documentary Films”, which will screen outstanding films made in various years. This programme was developed in cooperation with the Slovenian Cultural Centre and the Slovenian Film Centre and is curated by Simon Popek, programme manager of the Ljubljana International Film Festival.

The short film event “5x5 Shorts from the East” is being presented by DOK Leipzig in cooperation with the European partners Kraków Film Foundation, Czech Film Fund, Slovak Film Institute, Estonian Film Institute and Croatian Audiovisual Centre. These 25 documentary and animated films will be screened free of charge at the Polish Institute on 14 October and can be attended on a “hop on, hop off” basis.

“Doc Alliance Award” will be screening three long and three short documentaries from a competition held by this festival network, to which DOK Leipzig and six other European documentary film festivals belong. Here, too, the focus will be on Central and Eastern Europe.

The film selection of the programmes presented here can be found in the PDF file (see above).

The latest episode of the DOK Industry Podcast takes a deep dive into the richness of animated documentary and the ways it reimagines how to connect audiences to meaningful stories with empathy and imagination.

Filmmakers Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos (“Home Is Somewhere Else”) and Camrus Johnson and Pedro Piccinini (“Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad)” join the podcast, curated and hosted by María-Christina Villaseñor. The podcast comes as DOK Leipzig works to give greater prominence to animation at the festival. This year, DOK Leipzig is introducing a new award for feature-length animated films and is further expanding its industry activities to the animation sector.

The episode opens up fascinating perspectives on animated documentary film that interrogate the relationship between form and emotional exploration and expression. The filmmakers discuss how animation offers playfulness and freedom in their creative process, expanding and elevating true-to-life storytelling. The filmmakers also address questions of representation on and off screen in animated film, and how animation can reflect the universality of human life, transcending personal stories into stories of experience that are intimate yet relatable by audiences worldwide.

Johnson and Piccinini discuss their award-winning animated short documentary “Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad”, a very personal story of Johnson’s grieving father who has lost his best friend, his little brother, which turns into a beautiful testament to familial bonds and emotional expressivity as well as, at large, into a positive representation of black stories and an exploration of masculinity. The co-directors share insights about their collaborative work, which they see as an artistic exchange between the two creative minds, where animation is used as another layer of feeling over a personal story.

Co-directors of “Home Is Somewhere Else” Hagerman and Villalobos also talk about their collaborative work in the film and how their friendship of over 30 years helped develop the project. “Home Is Somewhere Else” is their first animated feature documentary following their long track record of successful short films and documentary features. Centring their film on the stories of three immigrant families living in fear of separation in the US, the co-directors turned to animation not only as an aesthetic choice to visualise their experiences but also as a way to enrich the narrative with a diversity of subjective truths.

Camrus Johnson is an actor, director and writer. His twice Academy-Award-qualified animated short film “Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad”, which he co-directed with Pedro Piccinini, has won over 20 awards at film festivals around the world. His NAACP Image Award-nominated animated short film “She Dreams at Sunrise” was an Official Selection of Tribeca Film Festival and was included in its “8:46 Films” collection which in response to George Floyd’s death presented stories of Black love and joy.

Pedro Piccinini is a visual artist and animator. In his work, he always seeks to find different ways of telling stories. Before finding his passion in animation, he worked in award-winning editorial designs and illustrations, producing on both digital and physical media, such as paper illustration and stop motion.

Carlos Hagerman is a director and producer. He has produced and (co)directed award-winning documentaries, including “Those Who Remain” (IDA Humanitas Award 2009), “Back to Life”, and “No Place Like Home”. He is the co-founder of Brinca Taller de Animación, alongside Jorge Villalobos and their colleagues.

Jorge Villalobos de la Torre is a writer, director and producer of animated and live-action projects. His animated and fiction short films have picked up over 20 international awards. He is the co-founder of Brinca Taller de Animación. “Home Is Somewhere Else” is his first animated feature documentary, which he co-directed with Carlos Hagerman.

María-Christina Villaseñor is a curator, film programmer and writer. Key focal points of her work are Latinx cinema, animation as filmic and art-installation practice, and a commitment to expanding access to and inclusion in the arts across underrepresented communities. She is the Programming Director for the New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF). Her previous work includes serving as film and media arts curator at the Guggenheim Museum.

The DOK Industry podcasts are produced in collaboration with What’s Up with Docs and the Programmers of Colour Collective (POC2), with the support of Docs-in-Orbit and MUBI, and funding from Creative Europe, BKM, MDM and the City of Leipzig.

Listen to the podcast episode: DOK Industry Podcasts

Keeping on with its long tradition of putting animated and documentary films in a dialogue, DOK Leipzig is further expanding its industry activities to the animation sector to boost mutual exchange and promote networking opportunities between documentary and animation film professionals. Interested professionals will have the opportunity to attend several events focusing on animated film, in particular, on Friday of the festival week (13 October).

Festival participants can find a number of dedicated formats in the DOK Industry programme connecting colleagues from the documentary and animation sectors, including Animation Lab DOK Leipzig (launched in cooperation with CEE Animation), an AG Animationsfilm panel, the networking event Animation Meets Doc and a Get Together hosted by AG Animationsfilm, ASIFA Germany, AG Kurzfilm and DIAF.

Events in the public programme include a DOK Talk on feature-length animated films hand-picked from this year's festival programme, the dialogue setting “Animation Perspectives” and the “Animation Night” with Tess Martin. This year, DOK Leipzig is also introducing an International Competition for animated films, awarding a Golden Dove for best animated feature and best animated short film. This comes as part of the festival’s intention to give greater prominence to feature-length animated films.

Tuesday 10 October – Friday 13 October

Animation Lab DOK Leipzig (in collaboration with CEE Animation)

DOK Industry is partnering up with CEE Animation (CEE Animation Forum, the largest industry platform for European animated projects in Central and Eastern European countries) to hold an inaugural animation workshop, Animation Lab DOK Leipzig. Documentary producers, who are developing their first animated documentary of any format (short, series or feature) will participate in the four-day workshop and gain insights into the animation industry as well as production and distribution. The workshop will be led by international experts from the animation industry. Main tutors are Jean-François Le Corre (Vivement-Lundi!, also “Flee”) and multidisciplinary artist Uri Kranot (ANIDOX).

Friday 13 October, 14:00 – 15:30

Panel by AG Animationsfilm: Diversity: Less Talk, More Action!

The AG Animationsfilm panel “Diversity: Less Talk, More Action!” addresses the issue of diversity in animated filmmaking. The panel vocalises the need to move away from tokenism toward genuine change, where diversity is woven into the fabric of animated film as well as its production processes. The panel will spotlight several animated films that are part of this year’s festival selection. The invited guests are individuals who have taken concrete steps to make diversity a reality in their films and in their work. The panellists will discuss the need for action, and how this could be implemented in animated filmmaking.

Friday 13 October at 18:30

Get Together (hosted by AG Animationsfilm, ASIFA Germany, AG Kurzfilm and DIAF)

In addition to dedicated workshops and talks, accredited guests will also have the opportunity to meet their colleagues and make new connections in a relaxed atmosphere at a Get Together, hosted by AG Animationsfilm (the German Animation Association), ASIFA Germany (Association Internationale du Film d'Animation / the International Animated Film Association), AG Kurzfilm (the German Short Film Association) and DIAF (the German Institute for Animated Film). The Get Together will take place on Friday evening, 13 October, at 18:30 at the Festival Centre.

Animation Meets Doc

With Animation Meets Doc, DOK Industry provides ample opportunity for animation filmmakers to meet esteemed members of the documentary community and experts from the field. This format offers animation and documentary film professionals to expand their network and get connected for future projects and collaborations.

“Animation Perspectives”: One workshop, two approaches to art

Artistic perspectives in animated film are presented not only in DOK Leipzig’s competitions, but in its curated sections as well. This year, the multiple award-winning animation artists Anne Isensee and Michelle Brand have been invited to be the focus of the “Animation Perspectives” section, where they will give each other and the audience an in-depth look into their work and their vision. The workshop will further include a virtual excursion into their studios and professional lives and be complemented by a programme of their films.

“In the beginning was the line,” notes curator André Eckardt in regard to these two exceptional artists. “They philosophise while drawing as well as through animation. They formulate outlooks on life and on ways that its surprising twists and predetermined coincidences can be represented in art.”

Michelle Brand’s works revolve around temporality. Working entirely without a script, she composes her films like variations on one of the central themes in her work. Various moments within the flow of time become simultaneous and superimposed in her images. Bodies in a pedestrian area merge with one another for a few moments or fragment into abstract shapes. Brand’s pursuit of the visual arts is evident in many of her films.

Anne Isensee uses a reductive style in her works – mostly drawing black outlines on a white background – thus enabling the viewer to focus on the things she wishes to communicate. Her art is about attitude and self-determination and problems arising on life’s path. No instructions are given on how to live one’s life, but people are encouraged to communicate with one other. Her short film “Megatrick” marked her debut at DOK Leipzig in 2017, earning her a Golden Dove.

“Beyond Animation”: Home as a safe place or a source of danger

“Home – Floor Plan, Elevation & Life” is the title under which the “Beyond Animation” film series will present animated film as the perfect medium for portraying “home” as an elusive place. “Home” is so much more than a place on a map. André Eckardt, who curated this selection of films as well, writes: “Every emotion has a location. Every formative, touching or hurtful experience has a somewhere. This is often, even most of the time, the place called ‘home’.”

To depict this “somewhere”, the artists behind the films in the “Beyond Animation” series use a variety of techniques. These range from digital matte paintings and cross-fading, as employed by Jeremy Blake in his “Winchester” trilogy about the eponymous arms manufacturer’s legendary estate, to stop-motion, as in Joana Silva’s “Lemon Tree”, in which a reconstructed model of a home is altered until a menacing ambiguity is felt. In Marie-Hélène Turcotte’s “The Formation of Clouds”, shimmering strokes of a pen illustrate how a girl gradually outgrows her home without realising it. In “Limits of Vision” by Laura Harrison, the hallucinatory and intoxicating images of a housewife grapple with “home” as an ambiguous place of female self-determination and gleefully comb conventional associations against the grain. “The architecture of ‘home’ is not functional but emotional,” André Eckhardt concludes. “It is built upon imagination, luck and misfortune.”

The entire "Animation Perspectives" and "Beyond Animation" selection of films can be found in the PDF file of the press release (see above)

The 66th edition of the DOK Leipzig film festival will open on 8 October 2023 with the world premiere of Arndt Ginzel’s documentary “White Angel – The End of Marinka”.

This film documents evacuation and rescue operations in the small town of Marinka in the Donetsk region from the spring to the autumn of 2022. The impressive close-up footage of the operations is from a GoPro camera worn by police officers who repeatedly drive around the town in a white van which the civilians call the “White Angel”. In the spring of 2023, Arndt Ginzel and his team returned to Ukraine and spoke with the rescuers and survivors about their traumatic experiences – and about the demise of their home town, which no longer exists.

“The survivors’ testimony speaks of loss, of pain and grief, but also of hopes and dreams,” comments festival director Christoph Terhechte. “More than a film about war, ‘White Angel – The End of Marinka’ is a document of humanity and a longing for peace.”

Leipzig journalist Arndt Ginzel has been producing TV documentaries for German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF for many years. Two weeks prior to the Russian invasion, he travelled to Ukraine to shoot reports for German television about the killing of Ukrainian civilians and the abduction of children from Russian-occupied territories. He was in the country at the time of the invasion and reported from there in the weeks that followed. In 2022, he was awarded Netzwerk Recherche’s Leuchtturm-Preis (Lighthouse Award) for his war reporting from Ukraine.

Ginzel has done investigative journalism in numerous regions affected by war and other crises. In Syria, for example, he uncovered crimes committed by Russia’s Wagner Group. In Croatia, he tracked down a network of arms dealers linked to right-wing extremists of the German political party AfD.

Ginzel became known, among other things, for his research into the “Sachsensumpfaffäre” (Saxony Swamp Affair) which was published in “Der Spiegel” and “Zeit Online” in 2007. For a TV report titled “Spiel im Schatten – Putins unerklärter Krieg gegen den Westen” (Operating in the Shadows – Putin’s Undeclared War on the West), he and Markus Weller received the Bavarian Television Award in 2017. That same year, his report “Putins geheimes Netzwerk – Wie Russland den Westen spaltet” (Putin’s Secret Network – How Russia Divides the West) was nominated for a German Television Award. In 2019, along with Gerald Gerber, he received the Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media by the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig for his research in connection with the Pegida demonstrations in Dresden.

DOK Leipzig will hold its opening in CineStar 4 on Sunday, 8 October 2023 at 7 pm. Film director Arndt Ginzel will be there for a film talk.

"White Angel - The End of Marinka" is a co-production of GKD-Journalisten and the German broadcaster ZDF. "ZDF Frontal" is responsible for the editing.

The 19th edition of the DOK Co-Pro Market welcomes 35 documentary projects from 30 countries that will have the opportunity to find international financing and co-production partners. This year has seen an increase in the number of submissions, totalling 316 projects.

The selection features a number of compelling projects that tackle pressing issues of our time. Some projects examine the impact of the raging war in Ukraine, including Halyna Lavrynets’ “Omelko’s House or Guests from Kharkiv”, produced by Alexandra Bratyshchenko and co-produced by Peter Kerekes (both also “Fragile Memory”), Olga Stuga’s “Second Line” (Habilis Productions, also at the Co-Pro Market 2022 with “Kartli”) and Dmytro Hreshko’s “Divia” about the environmental tragedy in the wake of war and man-made violence. Displacement and migration are addressed in several other projects. Sanhah Lee’s “Be My Guest Worker” amplifies stories of migrants that echo from Germany to South Korea, while Tanim Yousuf’s “Ghost Boat” (Bulldog Agenda, also “This Rain Will Never Stop”) lays bare the devastating toll of human trafficking. Ahmet Petek’s “Ben û Sen” (Dryades Films) zeroes in on his family who had found refuge in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakır in the 1990s but are again facing difficult choices amid the expropriation of the Ben û Sen neighbourhood. Grzegorz Paprzycki’s “December” (Telemark, also at DOK Preview Training 2022 with “Pianoforte”) portrays a battle between empathy and indifference towards refugees and migrants in December, the month of Christmas and giving.

Three projects expand the genre of true crime, using unique artistic perspectives and intricate storytelling. Tamara Erde’s “Shaina 13 to 15”, produced by Enrica Capra (Tag Film, also the DOK Leipzig Opening Film 2022 “No Dogs or Italians Allowed”) sheds light on the case of Shaïna, an adolescent murdered by her boyfriend at age 15, reconstructing her story in the lead-up to her tragic death. Exploring how crimes have altered their families, Lene Berg’s “The Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (produced by Ellen Ugelstad) interrogates questions of truth and film, violence and guilt mired in the 1975 arrest of her father Arnljot Berg, a renowned Norwegian film director who was accused of the murder of his wife. Loris G. Nese’s project “Last Time” also reveals his family’s dark past, utilising family archives and animation to revisit his childhood and adolescence marred by the death of his father and the discovery of his criminal life.

Some projects delve into the theme of youth in the context of current realities: Eleftherios Panagiotou’s “Asphaltos”follows two young people seeking a path of emancipation, while Victoria Álvares and Quentin Delaroche’s “PULSE’’charts the struggle of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) to carve out a space in institutional politics, from the perspective of a young female activist. Aygul Bakanova’s project “Overtones (WT)” (if…Productions, also “The Teacher’s Lounge”) follows the life of children in a Kyrgyz music boarding school. This year’s line-up also features a documentary series about youth and cyberbullying, “I Don't Want to Say Goodbye” by Carola Fuentes (La Ventana Cine). The series project is a valued addition to the selection, with DOK Industry’s programme embracing serial content across its formats.

Other projects contemplate the future and conjure up alternative visions of society. Shot on 16mm, “Artificial Clouds” by Josefina Buschmann is a posthuman coming-of-age story that follows an AI’s search for their earthly body. Tristan Ferland Milewski’s “ZOOTOPIA” offers a provoking manifesto for the future, entertaining an idea of a multi-species society (CORSO Film).

Faithful to its commitment to support creative animated documentaries, this year’s Co-Pro Market selection showcases four strong projects: Corine Shawi’s “Just like a Dream”, Alaa Dajani’s “How Many Nights How Many Days?”, Chloe Fairweather’s “Rabbit” and Hsieh Sheng-Hung’s “Wind and View”.

The 19th edition records a prominent international interest in the Co-Pro Market from far beyond the European borders. This October, the Co-Pro Market will welcome directors and producers from the US, three South American countries, six Asian countries and six African countries, including one fixed co-production between Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Ivory Coast, “Djeliya, Memory of Manding” by Boubacar Sangaré (also the 2023 Berlinale Forum title “Or de vie”).

The selection also includes five promising projects that the DOK Industry Team scouted at trusted partner training initiatives and film markets: “War on Women” (East Doc Platform), “Eaglette – A Superstar Erased” (Durban FilmMart), “One Street in Silwan” (CoPro Israel), “Asphaltos” (BDC Discoveries) and “Omelko’s House or Guests from Kharkiv” (DOC LAB POLAND’s DOCS TO START).

Some of the directors and producers invited to this year’s Co-Pro Market have had their films screened at DOK Leipzig in the past or presented previous projects at DOK Industry.  Petit à Petit Production (at the Co-Pro Market 2020 with “Paradise”) is returning to DOK Leipzig with the new project “Lisa” in which director Frederik Arens Grandin uses the medium of film to make sense of his mother ending her life and of the world that had become foreign to her. Filmmakers from Leipzig Jonas Eisenschmidt and Constanze Wolpers will introduce their new project “Prison Honey”, a poetic documentary that observes how convicted murderers become beekeepers.

The DOK Co-Pro Market 2023 will take place from 9 to 10 October in Leipzig.

This year, Guevara Namer, an experienced producer, visual artist and documentary filmmaker, joined the DOK Industry Team as coordinator of DOK Co-Pro Market and Short n' Sweet. The Co-Pro Market selection process was further supported by Zeynep Güzel (filmmaker and head of Doc Station at Berlinale Talents) and Wouter Jansen (founder of Square Eyes).

The complete project selection of the 19th DOK Co-Pro Market can be found here: DOK Co-Pro Market

A dachshund loses its life, but is reunited with its grieving friend in an imaginary realm. The daughters of the head of a kung fu school battle not only their opponents, but their stage fright as well. And in “Planet B”, young activists address the urgent question of the possibility of life on a planet that is increasingly being destroyed by humans.

The programmes of films in the Kids DOK section are aimed at five different age groups: 4+, 6+, 8+, 11+ and 14+.

For children in preschool and kindergarten, Kids DOK offers age-appropriate international short films – seven at one blow. From sea creatures fending off a ravenous seagull to the tumultuous journey of a giant crate to life on a farm in Senegal, the range of films shows how imaginative and artistic animated and documentary short films can be.

For schoolchildren and teenagers, there is a captivating mixture of documentary and animated films, divided into four age ranges. These are films from young people’s point of view, stories that are on their level and tales from worlds unfamiliar to them.

For the 6+ age group, there is a programme of animated films about arriving, saying goodbye and belonging, as well as a documentary about fighting spirit and perseverance. Eight- to eleven-year-olds can expect four stories in which their peers encounter things in their everyday lives that move them, challenge them, and prompt them to reconsider: a career wish is abandoned, a dream is adapted to the circumstances, an unplanned adventure is surmounted. The programme for ages 12+ tells of female skateboarders who face a ban in their city, of girls in boot camps and of others who are on a mission to bring fledging puffins back to a cliff so that they can learn to fly. For everyone over 14, there is a film about enthusiastic climate activists against climate change and an upbeat animated film about the most beautiful aspects of solitude.

The international films selected for Kids DOK are either completely without dialogue, are subtitled in German or are dubbed into German, depending on the age group. The morning screenings on weekdays during the festival are particularly suitable for day-care and nursery groups. Individual tickets to the Kids DOK screenings cost five euros.

In addition to its programme of films, DOK Education gives schoolchildren and teachers the opportunity to become familiar with documentary and animated film as a form of cinematic expression. The events range from school screenings of selected festival films to the “DOK Spotters” youth project to “Teachers Day”, a film education workshop for teachers.

The “DOK Spotters” workshop is aimed at young people between the ages of 14 and 20 who are interested in film journalism. Guided by media professionals, they learn techniques of interviewing, photography, and video and audio editing, and publish their reports about the festival on their blog, dok-spotters.de, and in various local media.

“Teachers Day”, a full-day workshop for teachers, will be held in cooperation with Vision Kino in Leipzig on 11 October. This year, the focus is on “Sick Girls” by Gitti Grüter. This striking festival film, which is having its world premiere at DOK Leipzig, is a very personal reflection on dealing with ADHD.

“Our aim is to have a discussion about the reasons why the topic of ADHD – in school, but outside of it as well – is increasingly relevant. Is it possible that our efficiency-oriented society is simply weeding out those who go against the grain faster than before? Or are changing lifestyles actually leading to an increase in neural development disorders?" is how Luc-Carolin Ziemann, who is in charge of DOK Education, describes the thematic focus.

To complement this, DOK Leipzig is organising a school screening of “Sick Girls” in late November. Alongside the screening and a discussion of the film, DOK Education is offering a pre- or post-screening module and providing teaching materials. School classes may still register for this.

The entire Kids DOK selection of films can be found in the PDF file of the press release (see above)

An overview about all offers concerning DOK Education you find here.

In the latest episode of the DOK Industry Podcast, filmmaker, activist and co-founder of Re-Present Media Jennifer Crystal Chien joins host Toni Bell in examining the need to generate new and more authentic representations and portrayals of BIPOC communities and expand those stories to other ways of storytelling.

Crystal Chien and Bell discuss some of the challenges faced by BIPOC filmmakers working within the context of the white dominant narrative, and how the white-centring culture continues to affect their work and what films ultimately get made and seen.

This discussion engages the vital question of who is determining what is of interest and to whom. The question of audience (whether the film is compelling enough, or whether it includes enough explanation and context) is an important one because it is often asked from the white dominant perspective, which influences the filmmaking process and limits topics and story arcs deemed acceptable for mainstream storytelling, thus barring some BIPOC filmmakers from accessing funding structures if they do not follow a certain type of mainstream narrative.

The episode also delves into the work of Re-Present Media, which advocates for personal storytelling and its potential to lend nuance to stories from underrepresented communities in the complex cultural landscapes and offer a wider range of topics that are not necessarily focused on a social-issue agenda but represent the fullness of human experience.

Curators of the episode are Toni Bell and Brianna Jovahn. Toni Bell is the creator and host of the What's Up with Docs Podcast and archival researcher (listen to Bell’s previous episodes on archives in Season 2 and Season 3 of the DOK Industry Podcast). She is the Impact Producer for Re-Present Media’s “The Power of Personal Documentary Films” and “A Woman on the Outside.” She is also the Impact Partnerships Strategist for Odyssey Impact.

Guest speaker Jennifer Crystal Chien is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Re-Present Media, a grassroots nonprofit that aims to elevate voices from underrepresented communities and humanise media representations of those communities through a focus on personal storytelling.

The podcast is available on the DOK Leipzig website as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Deezer. Part 2 of Bell’s conversation with Crystal Chien will be released soon on the What’s Up with Docs platform.

The DOK Industry podcasts are produced in collaboration with What’s Up with Docs and the Programmers of Colour Collective, with the support of Docs-in-Orbit and funding from Creative Europe, BKM, MDM and the City of Leipzig.

Listen to the podcast episode on Podigee or Spotify.

The 66th edition of DOK Leipzig will feature a homage to the distinguished filmmaker Peter Mettler. The films by this Swiss-Canadian director create a space for exploring humanity’s search for meaning and questions about its existence in a captivatingly impartial and reverent way.

The two chapters that Mettler has thus far released of his seven-part cinematic diary “While the Green Grass Grows” earned him the Grand Prix at the 2023 Visions du Réel festival. Drawing upon Mettler’s personal memories and family experiences, the film looks at life cycles and the way the world is constantly changing. “While the Green Grass Grows” will be competing for the Golden Dove in the International Competition Documentary Film at DOK Leipzig. The homage will also include two of his earlier films: “Picture of Light” (1994), in which his team goes in search of the Northern Lights and acquiesces to a state of waiting, and “Gambling, Gods and LSD” (2002), a hypnotic, musical film about people in search of transcendence and ecstasy.

“Peter Mettler is a traveller who is constantly sifting through the layers of time and space and the continuum of the filmmaking process, aware that the significance of human beings on Planet Earth is ultimately of little consequence,” notes Annina Wettstein, the programme’s curator.

In a masterclass, Mettler will provide insight into his unique, process-oriented approach to making all the films screened at the festival as well as the cinematic notebook “Eastern Avenue” (1985). He will also present previously unreleased excerpts of other instalments of “While the Green Grass Grows”.

DOK Leipzig will also be welcoming animated filmmaker Tess Martin. This artist, who was born in the United States, has lived in Italy, Ghana and the UK and is currently living in the Netherlands. Her experience of growing up amid different cultures allows her personal perspective on such themes as belonging, identity, interpersonal issues and historical events to inform her art.

“1976: Search for Life” is an example of this, interweaving memories of her own family with images from the landing of the first NASA probes on Mars. This work, which was originally conceived as an installation, crosses over into fine art, as does “The Whale Story”, a stop-motion animated film in which an actor portraying a diver interacts with a mural depicting a whale.

Martin’s work encompasses numerous explorations of different media and styles, from charcoal drawings to painted glass, to photo cut-outs and pixilation, to Phonotrope animation.

“Many of Tess Martin's films reveal her analogue approach,” says curator and animator Franka Sachse. “She doesn’t conceal or remove the traces of this. They’re ever so slightly palpable – in hand-cut paper, in barely perceptible fingerprints in smudged charcoal, and in the subtle vibration of sequential photographs against a static background.”

During her retrospective at the “Animation Night” on the festival Friday, 13 October, Martin will present a number of her short films, giving a glimpse into the mind and soul of the artist. The first part of the evening will be dedicated to the works she has created over the past ten years as a professional filmmaker, in chronological order. The second part will explore the inspiration for her earlier works and their connection to her current project, which is still in the production stage.

The entire selection of films in the programmes profiled here can be found in the PDF file of the press release (see above).

The second session of the Ex Oriente Film workshop, an esteemed project-based training programme from the Institute of Documentary Film (IDF), will take place for the first time in Germany, in collaboration with DOK Leipzig on 6 - 11 October 2023.

Director of DOK Industry at DOK Leipzig Nadja Tennstedt has expressed enthusiasm for the cooperation with the IDF and commended the quality of projects selected for Ex Oriente: “The Institute of Documentary Film has been a wonderful and trusted partner of DOK Industry for many years. We are continuously impressed by the high quality of projects selected for Ex Oriente. So, it brings us great joy to welcome the talented creative teams of documentary feature films and documentary series along with the knowledgeable and inspiring professionals who will be guiding and mentoring these teams."

This year, a total of 12 creative documentary feature-length films and, for the first time, five documentary series projects are participating in intensive sessions, working closely with a panel of international experts and tutors. Among the tutors of the second session are VP and Executive Producer of Documentaries for HBO Europe Hanka Kastelicová, sales agent Manuela Buono (Slingshot Films), producer Erik Winker (CORSO Film) and documentary film editor and story consultant Yael Bitton. Please find the full list of tutors of the second session here.

During the second session, participating directors will further hone the visual style and narrative of their documentary feature films and series, while producers will develop a detailed financing strategy, dive into various aspects of international co-production and receive valuable guidance in navigating the landscape of European broadcasters. The director-producer teams will also start preparing for the workshop’s final session and gain insights into pitching and marketing.

As a three-module creative lab, the Ex Oriente Film workshop offers a comprehensive support for creative documentary projects in development and early production from Central and Eastern Europe. The third and final session of this year’s workshop will be held during the East Doc Platform in Prague in March 2024, in partnership with the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.

Overview of projects participating in the 2023 Ex Oriente Film workshop:

Ex Oriente Documentary Feature Films

Acting Classes - director Sasha Shegai, producers Assel Yerzhanova (FilmFilmFilm) and Yevgeniya Moreva, Kazakhstan

Armenia Phantom - director Tamara Stepanyan, producer Céline Loiseau (TS Productions), France/Armenia

Becoming Roosi - director Margit Lillak, producer Margit Lillak ​​(Tiny Desk Productions), co-producers Dirk Manthey (Dirk Manthey Film) and Hõbe Ilus (Tiny Desk Productions), Estonia/Germany

Birdie - director Aneta Ptak, producer Małgorzata Staroń (Staron Film), Poland

Do Magic - director Vera Lacková, producer Peter Drössler (Golden Girls Film), Austria/Slovakia

How I Became a Hijacker - director Andrew Carter, producer Aleksandra Szczesna, Poland/Germany

Keepers of the Ruins - director Mariia Shevchenko, producer Ella Shtyka (New Kyiv), Poland/Ukraine

Letters - director Andrei Kutsila, producer Sofiia Zadorozhna, Poland/Belarus

Lights - director Mila Teshaieva, producer Marcus Lenz, Germany/Ukraine

Man Under the Ice - director Eva Tomanová, producers Michal Kráčmer (Analog Vision), Veronika Kührová (Analog Vision) and Kenan Aliyev, Czech Republic

The Poor Cry Too - directors Viktorija Mickute and Ieva Balsiunaite, producer Dagne Vildziunaite (Just a Moment), Lithuania/Mexico

What About Little Peter? - director Martin Trabalík, producer Jan Bodnar (GNOMON PRODUCTION S.R.O.), Czech Republic

Ex Oriente Documentary Series

Exit Only - director Timo Novotny, producer Tereza Horská (Hypermarket Film), Czech Republic/Austria

Tito. The West's Favorite Dictator - director Bence Máté, producers Gunnar Dedio (Looks Filmproduktionen GmbH) and Regina Dr. Bouchehri (Looks Filmproduktionen GmbH), Germany/Austria/Croatia/Italy

Unhero or a Falling Star - director Georgi Tenev, producer Martichka Bozhilova (Agitprop Ltd.), Bulgaria

The Murderers of Anna Labancz - director Balázs Dudás, producer Balázs Dudás, Hungary

She Is Not in the Business of Making Friends - director Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan, producers Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan (Manifest Film) and Elena Martin (Manifest Film), Romania

Tutors of the second session:

Ex Oriente Documentary Feature Films

Christian Popp, Iikka Vehkalahti, Filip Remunda, Ivana Pauerová Miloševičová, Yael Bitton, Mikael Opstrup, Erik Winker, Stefan Rull, Manuela Buono, Joanna Solecka, Stefano Savona

Ex Oriente Documentary Series

Ruth Reid, Florian Schewe, Carsten Gutschmidt, Hanka Kastelicová

This year’s DOK Leipzig Retrospective titled “Film and Protest – Popular Uprisings in the Cold War” will explore the past by turning a spotlight on the cinematic testimony to resistance against Soviet regimes – a testimony that existed outside of the propagandistic self-portrayal of those in power. This programme, curated by Katharina Franck (Cinémathèque Leipzig) and Andreas Kötzing (Hannah Arendt Institute Dresden), focuses on films that documented the uprisings in various Eastern Bloc countries as they were happening, while bypassing the censors and defying political persecution.

These uprisings range from the East German protests of 17 June 1953 to the uprising in Budapest in 1956, to the Prague Spring, to the bloody struggles for independence in the Baltic states after 1990. At the same time, the retrospective also takes a look at lesser-known conflicts, including the mass protests in Poznan (1956) and the Polish workers' uprising of December 1970.

“The popular uprisings and quashed attempts at reform are a recurring theme throughout the Cold War period,” Andreas Kötzing points out. “When viewed as a whole, these films demonstrate that the protest movements were an enduring phenomenon in the Eastern Bloc – and that there were a wide variety of ways for filmmakers to portray them in film.”

The contents of the Retrospective range from subversive animated films to footage smuggled into Western countries to unusually candid films that could only be made as a result of a brief relaxation of censorship in Poland. “The courage of the filmmakers who took substantial risks, sometimes even risking their lives, with their covert footage or subversive productions resonates throughout the programme,” comments Katharina Franck. The programme also looks at the Western perspective on these developments in the Eastern Bloc, as reflected in the media at the time.

By staging this Retrospective, DOK Leipzig is also reflecting on its own controversial history. The growing influence of ideological guidelines on its programming meant that until the late 1980s, critical approaches to Soviet regimes were largely absent from the festival. This year’s programme includes some of the films that fell victim to (self-)censorship at the time, such as a Cuban newsreel by Santiago Álvarez (1968), in which Fidel Castro spoke critically of the Soviet invasion of Prague, and Bohdan Kosiński’s film about the “Birth of Solidarity” (1981), which was shown at Western festivals when it came out but was not invited to Leipzig.

The Retrospective at the 66th edition of DOK Leipzig will kick off with three short films from the period of upheaval from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. They will be shown free of charge at the main station on 9 October as part of the Leipzig Festival of Lights.

Two matinees tie in to the theme of the Retrospective. With the film “Woe to the Vanquished – The Workers’ Uprising, 17 June 1953” (1990) by Andrea Ritterbusch in the DEFA Matinee, DOK Leipzig is screening an impressive cinematic recreation of the popular uprising in the GDR which uses original footage from Western archives and interviews with eyewitnesses filmed directly after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The Matinee Saxon State Archive will contribute to this multifaceted topic by reflecting critically on so-called “German-Soviet friendship” and its chequered history, which involved both fraternisation and glorification.

This year, the FilmFestival Cottbus (7–12 November) is also taking up the theme of resistance to communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc. A section titled “What Remains of History” is offering screenings of feature and documentary films on uprisings and opposition in the socialist GDR, Poland and Hungary. The programme includes films by Andrzej Wajda, Márta Mészáros, Andrea Ritterbusch and Volker Schlöndorff.
 

The Retrospective was produced in cooperation with the Cinémathèque Leipzig and the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Studies in Dresden.

DOK Leipzig would like to thank the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany, the DEFA Foundation and the Saxon State Archive for their funding and support of the film programmes.

The entire selection of films in the programmes profiled here can be found in the PDF file of the press release (see above).

On the occasion of the annual Leipzig Festival of Lights, which commemorates the climax of the Peaceful Revolution on 9 October 1989, DOK Leipzig will be screening three short films at Leipzig main station at the start of the week-long film festival. These films will also open this year’s Retrospective, titled “Film and Protest – Popular Uprisings in the Cold War”, which will focus on uprisings against the communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc and against Soviet hegemony. The Retrospective will cover the period from 17 June 1953 to the revolutionary upheavals around 1989/90 and will also look at the People’s Republic of Poland, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Hungarian People’s Republic, among others.

The public screening at the Festival of Lights will include three short films made between 1989 and 1991 that document the anxiety and hope felt during this time of upheaval: “Sitis” by Rainer Schade (GDR 1989), “The Wall” by Anatolijs Pjatkins (Latvia 1991) and “Exit” by Małgorzata Bieńkowska-Buehlmann (Poland 1990). The screening at the Leipzig main station (East Hall) on 9 October 2023 starts at 6 pm. Admission is free.

Because of this, the 66th edition of DOK Leipzig will begin one day earlier, on Sunday, 8 October, with the opening ceremony at CineStar. During the week leading up to 15 October, the festival will present about 200 documentaries and animated films in numerous venues across the city. Additionally, each day during the week of the festival, a different film will be available online throughout Germany for 24 hours in the DOK Stream.

Stefan Ibrahim, a graphic designer and illustrator from Leipzig, has created this year’s poster design, which shows a pair of paper scissors. The original scissors that served as the model were found in the festival’s film storeroom. At the festival and online, further types of scissors are waiting to be discovered.

“As in previous years, we have deliberately chosen an everyday object that can be associated with many things,” festival director Christoph Terhechte explains. “Scissors are a tool for shaping and forming objects. Every day, they are used for many types of art, including animation. Scissors create new things and achieve clarity; they can also symbolise letting go and adopting a new perspective. The films we show also use artistic means to present snippets of the world and offer fresh perspectives.”

The complete schedule of films, including all the dates, will be online from 21 September, when ticket sales start.

The winners of the Doc Alliance Award 2023 have been announced tonight at the award ceremony of DokuFest in Prizren.

The Doc Alliance Award for Best Feature Film, endowed with 5,000 EUR, went to “Death of a City“ by João Rosas. The film follows the demolition of an old printing workshop in the center of Lisbon to make way for luxury flats. What starts out as a work-centred film turns out to be an evocative account of the director's relationship with his hometown and the people who build it – a polyphonic narrative made up of their stories of labour and migration, shining a light on the violence and destruction that hide under the progress of our cities.

The jury commended the director “for an intelligently politicised work and its salutary portrayal of the lives of the people therein, an incisive and moving exploration of the face of modern Europe.“

The Doc Alliance Award for Best Short Film, endowed with 3,000 EUR, went to “The Cervix Pass“ by Marie Bottois. In her film, the director refers to the founding of the MLAC (Movement for Abortion and Contraception Freedom) in France in 1973. In the style of militant and feminist films of the time, she documents the insertion of an intrauterine device inside her own body.

The jury praised the film’s “ability to organize a moving and playful coexistence between life and cinema. Marie Bottois combines in a remarkable way political and cinematographic rigor, courage and humor, frontality and delicacy.“

The winning films were selected by a jury of three film professionals with different experience in the industry: Jonathan Ali, a programmer and curator (Locarno Film Festival, Open City Docs, True/False Film Fest, Sheffield DocFest and Third Horizon Film Festival), Anna Berthollet, CEO at Lightdox (sales and distribution) and programmer Arnaud Hée (Bibliothèque publique d’information du Centre Pompidou).

“Disturbed Earth“, a feature-length documentary by Kumjana Novakova and Guillermo Carreras Candi, received a Special Mention by the jury. The film was nominated by DokuFest, this year’s guest festival of Doc Alliance.

“The Cervix Pass“ and “Disturbed Earth” is available on dafilms.com until 31 August along with a selection of nominated short films and Doc Alliance Award winners from previous editions, which have gone on to enduring success in the world of documentary.

The Doc Alliance network of documentary film festivals supports emerging talent in European documentary film. Each of the seven festivals (CPH:DOX, Doclisboa, DOK Leipzig, FIDMarseille, Ji.hlava IDFF, Millennium Docs Against Gravity FF and Visions du Réel) as well as a guest festival nominates one short and one feature-length documentary film from its past programme. In addition, each festival in the network shows at least three films from the selection in its next edition.

The network cordially invites European documentary film festivals to apply as guest festival 2024. The guest festival will be part of the network and will participate in the selection of nominations for the Doc Alliance Award. Applications can be sent to barbora [at] dafilms [dot] com.

Full dafilms programme of Doc Alliance Award winners and nominees: dafilms
All information about the Doc Alliance Awards 2023: Doc Alliance Award
 

Three years ago, China introduced its controversial “National Security Law” for Hong Kong, severely restricting freedom of the press and freedom of expression. In the latest episode of the DOK Industry Podcast, filmmakers Tze Woon Chan, Kanas Liu and Dr Anson Hoi Shan Mak discuss the impact the law has had on documentary filmmaking in Hong Kong. The episode is hosted and moderated by film curator Karen Cheung.

Given the recent news of content from several short films of the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival was censored by the Office for Film, Newspaper & Article Administration, our guests talk about the 2021 revision of the policy on film censorship in Hong Kong and share their own experience with (self-)censorship.

Another topic is how challenging it is for documentary filmmakers to find people in Hong Kong who are willing to speak openly about their experiences in front of the camera – and to protect these respondents from reprisals. How can an artist’s aim of documenting reality be fulfilled without endangering the protagonists?

The filmmakers also discuss the current difficulty to obtain funding at a national level for making or distributing independent documentaries. Nonetheless, the tightening restrictions are not stopping many filmmakers from documenting life in Hong Kong and the stories of local people, but are instead inspiring them to find creative ways of realising their projects.

Tze Woon Chan is a director and writer from Hong Kong. His first feature-length documentary, “Yellowing” (2016), received awards at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and the Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards. His second film, “Blue Island” (2022), was honoured as best international documentary at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.

The filmmaker Kanas Liu has been documenting social movements and protests in Hong Kong since 2014, including the “Umbrella Revolution” and the mass protests against the proposed extradition law in 2019. Her short film “Comrades” was nominated for a Crystal Bear in the Generation Kplus section in 2020.

Dr Anson Hoi Shan Mak is an artist who works with moving images and sound. Her work, which includes single-channel film and video, phonographic sound art and web-based documentaries, has been presented at numerous film festivals, museums and galleries, including in Hong Kong, Busan, Yamagata, Los Angeles, London and Berlin.

Karen Cheung is a film curator and head of communication and marketing at the European Film Academy. In Berlin, she served as a curator at the Hong Kong Independent Film Festival in Berlin (2019) and the festival “Voices of the Ground: Short Film in Chinese Languages” (2021). In 2020 and 2023, she published academic articles on the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

The podcast is available from the DOK Leipzig website as well as from Spotify, Google Podcasts and Deezer.

The DOK Industry podcasts are produced in collaboration with What’s Up with Docs and the Programmers of Colour Collective, with the support of Docs-in-Orbit and funding from Creative Europe, BKM, MDM and the City of Leipzig.

Listen to the podcast episode: DOK Industry Podcasts

The first episode of the new season of the DOK Industry Podcast has just gone online. Filmmakers Sameer Farooq and Marley McDonald join host Aisha Jamal to reflect on the specific role that documentary films can play in the decolonisation of museums.

Sameer Farooq introduces his experimental documentary “The Museum Visits a Therapist” (co-directed by Mirjam Linschooten). This film focuses on the collection in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam’s prominent museum of ethnography, and asks: What if the museum were to go to a therapist? What might such a trauma-centred therapy session reveal?

Marley McDonald is currently developing a documentary project entitled “The Elephant in the Room” which focuses on American natural history museums. This film, which consists entirely of archival footage, attempts to discern what collections show and hide about their past, present, and future.

In this episode of the podcast, our guests explore such questions as: What does documentary film add to the conversation around art restitution and museum collections? What are the ethical concerns when dealing with archives? How can images, objects or entire collections be further decolonised?

Sameer Farooq is a Canadian artist of Pakistani and Ugandan Indian descent. Using a versatile approach involving sculpture, photography, documentary film and anthropological methods, he explores strategies of representation to add to the ways in which museums have investigated the past through collection, interpretation and display.

Marley McDonald is a filmmaker, animator and painter. She was an associate editor on “Spaceship Earth” and “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” and an additional editor on “Listening to Kenny G”. She completed her first feature film, “Time Bomb Y2K”, for HBO in 2023.

Documentary filmmaker and curator Aisha Jamal is a member of the Programmers of Colour Collective and a curator at the Hot Docs film festival in Canada. She is currently working on her second documentary film about art repatriation and museum culture.

The podcast is available from the DOK Leipzig website as well as from Spotify, Google Podcasts and Deezer.

The DOK Industry podcasts are produced in collaboration with What’s Up with Docs and the Programmers of Colour Collective, with the support of Docs-in-Orbit and funding from Creative Europe, BKM, MDM and the City of Leipzig.

Listen to the podcast episode: DOK Industry Podcasts

DOK Leipzig will be starting the fourth season of the DOK Industry Podcast on 20 June. From now on, episodes will be released throughout the year. The six episodes of the new season will be released monthly leading up to the festival in October.

Season 4 of the DOK Industry Podcast will include a profile of the Re-Present Media initiative, which works to promote personal stories by filmmakers from groups that are underrepresented in documentary and non-fiction media. Other episodes will discuss the current working conditions of filmmakers from Hong Kong, reflect on the role of documentaries in the critical discussion of the decolonisation of museums, and explore documentary animated film.

“Our podcasts are a source of inspiration and education to envision a more diverse film industry,” explains Nadja Tennstedt, head of DOK Industry. “We believe in the power of a broad range of experiences, aesthetics, storytelling and perspectives.”

The DOK Industry podcasts are produced in collaboration with the Programmers of Colour Collective (POC2) and the creators of the “What’s Up with Docs” podcast, Toni Bell and Ranell Shubert. The conversations are curated and moderated by film industry professionals who include underrepresented perspectives in the discussion. Among this year’s curators are Lucy Mukerjee, Karen Cheung, Aisha Jamal and Maria-Christina Villaseñor from POC2, Toni Bell and XR Creator Weronika Lewandowska.

All episodes will be posted on the DOK Leipzig website as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Deezer.

The podcasts have been a part of DOK Industry since 2020. Two global phenomena have had a major influence on the new format. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged DOK Leipzig to develop new means of exploring burning issues in the film industry online. At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement brought to the fore the urgent need to discuss the level of equity and inclusivity in the documentary film industry in a more critical and transparent way.

While DOK Industry has been committed to gender parity and to supporting underrepresented voices for many years, the team recognized the need to create dedicated space in which to meaningfully address the status quo of the industry in terms of power structures and lack of representation as well as offering pathways into films, criticism and works of creators and writers from marginalized groups.

The films competing for this year's Doc Alliance Award have been announced during the Doc Day of the Marché du Film in Cannes. The 16^thDoc Alliance Award will be presented at the award ceremony of this year’s guest festival DokuFest in Prizren (4 – 12 August). Additionally, all nominated films will be screened at the festival.

The winning films will be decided by three film professionals with different experience in the industry: Anna Berthollet (CEO, Sales & Acquisitions at Lightdox), journalist and programmer Arnaud Hée (La Cinémathèque du Documentaire) and festival programmer Jonathan Ali (Third Horizon, Open City Documentary Festival, Open Doors Locarno).
 

Full list of Best Feature nominees:
 

• a-B-C-D-e-F-G-H-i-JONESTOWN, Czech Republic, director: Jan Bušta, nominated by Ji.hlava IDFF

• Christina (Kristina), Serbia, director: Nikola Spasic, nominated by FIDMarseille

• Death of a City (A Morte de uma Cidade), Portugal, director: João Rosas, nominated by Doclisboa

• Disturbed Earth, Bosnia and Herzegovina/ North Macedonia/ Spain, directors: Kumjana Novakova and Guillermo Carreras-Candi, nominated by DokuFest

• Nights Gone By (Antier noche), Switzerland/ Spain, director: Alberto Martín Menacho, nominated by Visions du Réel

• Polish Prayers, Poland/ Switzerland, director: Hanka Nobis, nominated by Millenium Docs Against Gravity

• Silent Sun of Russia (Vi er Rusland), Denmark, director: Sybilla Tuxen, nominated by CPH:DOX

• Three Women (Drei Frauen), Germany, director: Maksym Melnyk, nominated by DOK Leipzig

Full list of Best Short nominees:
 

• 07:15 – Blackbird, France, director: Judith Auffray, nominated by Ji.hlava IDFF

• Adjusting (Prilagodjeni), Serbia, director: Dejan Petrović, nominated by DokuFest

• Darkroom, Turkey, director: Asli Baykal, nominated by Visions du Réel

• May the Earth Become the Sky (Face-s-ar pământul cer), Belgium/ Hungary/ Portugal/ Romania, director: Ana Vîjdea, nominated by Doclisboa

• Nothing Runs Like a Deere, Sweden, director: Max Göran, nominated by CPH:DOX

• The cervix pass (Le passage du col), France, director: Marie Bottois, nominated by FIDMarseille

• waking up in silence, Germany/ Ukraine, directors: Mila Zhluktenko and
  Daniel Asadi Faezi, nominated by Millenium Docs Against Gravity

• Why my mum loves Russel Crowe, Netherlands, director: Emma van den Berg, nominated by DOK Leipzig
   

The Doc Alliance network of documentary film festivals supports emerging talents in European documentary film. Each of the seven festivals (CPH:DOX, Doclisboa, DOK Leipzig, FIDMarseille, Ji.hlava IDFF, Millennium Docs Against Gravity FF and Visions du Réel) as well as this year’s guest festival DokuFest have nominated one short and one feature-length documentary film from its past programme.

The Doc Alliance Award is endowed with 5,000 EUR (Best Feature) and 3,000 EUR (Best Short) for the filmmakers to spend on their next projects. In addition, each of the festivals in the network shows at least three films from the selection at its next edition.

More information about the nominated films: Doc Alliance Award Nominations

More information about the guest festival 2023: DokuFest

DOK Leipzig is pleased to welcome three new colleagues to the festival team who will contribute varied perspectives to the festival work. Victoria Leshchenko (Coordinator Documentary Film Competitions) and Jana Kraft (Coordinator Animated Film Competitions) are joining the programme department effective immediately. At DOK Industry, Guevara Namer will oversee the DOK Co-Pro Market and the DOK Short n’ Sweet short film pitch as project coordinator.

Victoria Leshchenko is a producer of cultural events and a curator who lives in Berlin and Kyiv. In 2010, following a stint at the Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival, she became the programme coordinator at the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, which DOK Leipzig partnered with last year. Since 2019, she has served as programme director at Docudays UA, curating numerous sections of that festival. In 2022, she and Yuliia Kovalenko founded the sloïk film atelier, an independent union of Ukrainian film curators which gives space to underrepresented voices and promotes them internationally.

Jana Kraft is working towards a degree in cultural studies and aesthetic communication at the University of Hildesheim. She lives in Leipzig. As part of her studies, she has been involved in the making of various cartoon and stop-motion films. She has also worked in film coordination at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the Kurzsuechtig Central German Short Film Festival.

Guevara Namer is a documentary filmmaker and visual artist based in Berlin. She started her career in Damascus in 2007. Her work deals with themes of feminism, identity and exile. Guevara Namer is a German Film Academy winner (Lola 2022 for “The Other Side of the River”), in her filmography she has held various roles in a number of collaborations with international filmmakers, including co-directing, researching, filming, and producing.

At the same time, DOK Leipzig is bidding farewell to programme coordinators Thérèse Antony (formerly Competitions) and Ulrike Schmidt (formerly DOK Co-Pro Market, DOK Short n’ Sweet), who are moving on to other endeavours. The festival team wishes them all the best.

DOK Leipzig is introducing a new award for feature-length animated films in time for the 66th edition of the festival this autumn. In doing so, festival director Christoph Terhechte is fulfilling his intention of giving greater prominence to feature-length animated films at the festival. Though announced in 2020, the introduction of a distinct competition for feature-length animated films had to be postponed repeatedly due to the pandemic.

“Every year we’ve been seeing feature-length animated films of very high artistic quality. In recent years, these animated films have been competing alongside documentaries for the Golden and Silver Doves. We now intend to change that and award a Golden Dove for a feature-length international documentary as well as a separate one for a feature-length animated film – as we’ve been doing with the short films,” explains Christoph Terhechte.

The Golden Dove for a feature-length animated film will include at least €3,000 in prize money. The exact amount this year will depend on a potential award sponsor and will be announced later on.

In adding the Golden Dove for a feature-length animated film, DOK Leipzig is also revamping the entire framework of its competitions. The six existing competitions are being consolidated into four. The number of awards, however, will remain the same.

The previous International Competitions are being split into the International Competition Documentary Film and the International Competition Animated Film.

The German Competitions will be replaced by the German Competition Documentary Film. German animated film productions will henceforth be screened in the International Competition Animated Film. The competitions for the Audience Award are being merged into the Audience Competition.

Until 2015, DOK Leipzig had had an international competition for animated films for many years. However, only short animated films ended up competing in it.

The new competition framework no longer distinguishes between short and feature-length films. With the exception of the Audience Competition, the competitions are thus open to films of any length. Separate awards will nonetheless be presented for long and short films, with the threshold at DOK Leipzig remaining at 40 minutes.

The films that earn the Golden Dove for a short animated film and both Golden Doves in the International Competition Documentary Film qualify for nomination for the annual Academy Awards, provided they meet the Academy’s requirements.

Outside of the competitions, DOK Leipzig continues to screen current documentary and animated films in its Camera Lucida and Panorama sections. These films are not in the running for the Golden and Silver Doves, but may be nominated for Partnership Awards.

This year, DOK Leipzig takes place 8 to 15 October. The call for films will open on 15 February. XR works can be submitted from 15 March.

Overview of the competitions and awards at DOK Leipzig 2023:

International Competition Documentary Film

A five-member jury presents the following awards:

• Golden Dove for a feature-length documentary film
• Golden Dove for a short documentary film
• Silver Dove for a feature-length documentary film by an up-and-coming director
• Silver Dove for a short documentary film by an up-and-coming director

International Competition Animated Film

A three-member jury presents the following awards:

• Golden Dove for a feature-length animated film
• Golden Dove for a short animated film

German Competition Documentary Film

A three-member jury presents the following awards:

• Golden Dove for a feature-length documentary film
• Golden Dove for a short documentary film

Audience Competition

A jury of five local film enthusiasts awards:

• a Golden Dove for a feature-length documentary or animated film

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