FAZ, 03/11/2011, p. 35
It’s gratifying to see the popularity this documentary festival on a global course enjoys.
... The programme spans the world from East to West and from South to North, though unable to gauge the heaviness of the globe.
This year the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Bernd Neumann, on his first visit to the Leipzig Festival, came with a stern lecture for the [public television] programme directors: “Documentary films belong in the prime time because they make us wiser.” He could be sure of applause in the great theatre of the Cinestar Multiplex.
Neues Deutschland, 22/10/2011
Claas Danielsen in an interview on the Arab Spring Focus Programme:
No, we don’t know yet what may become of these upheavals. But right now it’s important that we listen to the filmmakers from these countries, look at what they are bringing. A film is always a gift [...] We can develop an emotional understanding of what is going on there.
Sächsische Zeitung, 22/10/2011
Anita Müller’s “Chthonian City” was the first film by a Saxon director to make it into Leipzig’s International Competition.
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 22/10/2011
The German Competition Documentary Film featured an extraordinarily strong line-up this year with 12 films in the running. The Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize is new in this section. [...] The “Arab Spring” programme with its six brand-new documentaries generated a buzz and filled the theatres.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24/10/2011
Television has abandoned the documentary filmmakers. Now the industry is discussing new approaches at the Festival.
Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Bernd Neumann, who came to Leipzig for the first time this year, had a word or two to say about the ARD and its controversial programme reform in his opening speech. Documentary films belonged in the prime time, he said, it was “completely inacceptable” to shift them to poor slots, some at midnight, or pack them off to special interest channels.
The smell of change was quite noticeable in Leipzig this year.
This is where another newly founded initiative comes in; the “DOK Fund” announced by Claas Danielsen at the opening and designed to support films which take aesthetic or political risks. He intends to support such projects not just with several (ten) thousand Euros, but above all with the DOK Leipzig brand name.
Frankfurter Rundschau, 26/10/2011
A Klöfkorn show at the 54th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Films revealed how autonomous his brand of filmmaking is even within the animation film genre. [...] Klöfkorn’s transformed mundane objects [...] open our eyes to an everyday aesthetics which may be nothing more than the most visible form of the garbage of civilisation.
What a fine punch line for a Festival which is itself among those favoured by communism. They couldn’t be more intelligent or forthcoming in how they deal with their past.
Freitag, 27/10/2011
Sovpolikadr was the discovery of the Festival.
The record of more than 38,000 entries proved that there is a need for documentaries which offer us a multi-faceted view of the world and ought to make those television programmers think who betray their educational mandate in favour of gratuitous talk shows.
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 21/10/2011
The Leipzig Documentary Film Festival invites us to go time-travelling to this distant and yet close magic year of 1961, which influences our lives even today [...]. “1961 Reviewed – When the World Was Split in Two” is the title of an excellent retrospective presented there.
A treasure in the programme that has nothing at all to do with in-your-face politics is “Chronical of a Summer” by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin.
Sächsische Zeitung, 17/10/2011
For the 54th time, DOK Leipzig transforms the Leipzig cinemas into keyholes into the present day. The International Competition alone is a smorgasbord of the best documentary images in the world.
DOK Leipzig 2011 looks at India in this year’s Focus. The Special Programme “Filmmakers as Changemakers – the Rhythms of India” reveals not only the cultural wealth of India, but a country in the midst of dramatic upheavals.
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 24/10/2011
Today those advertising films for the real socialism look like propaganda on LSD. Shrill, over the top, slightly funny to unsuspecting viewers and yet extremely well-made – a highlight on the fringes of the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival [...]
In every respect, the 54th edition offered a programme focused on art and aesthetics which was nonetheless far from apolitical.
Leipzig is always good for some exciting media politics, too.
Online
Zeit.de
[...] the fourth-largest festival for documentary and animated films in the world. In Europe it is considered the most important platform for documentary films apart from Amsterdam.
Dokumentarfilm.info
The main characteristic of the Leipzig festival is the presentation in its various competitions of documentary as well as animated films.
Fest21.com
Das Leipziger Festival ist nicht nur ein Publikumsmagnet, sondern auch ein international anerkannter Treffpunkt für das Fachpublikum.
DW-world.de
DOK Leipzig, das führende deutsche Dokumentarfilmfestival, untersuchte zentrale Fragen des Lebens.
Die diesjährige Ausgabe setzte die Tradition anspruchsvoller Programme und Fachveranstaltungen auf dem intellektuell avanciertesten Stand dokumentarischen Filmschaffens fort.
DOK Leipzig hat sich über Jahrzehnte zu einem dynamischen Fest des Dokumentar- und Animationsfilms entwickelt, mischt Arthouse, Erzählung, aktuelle Themen und subtile Beobachtung. Die Erforschung der Geschichte und die kritische Untersuchung identitätsstiftender Ideale haben das Profil des Leipziger Festivals in seinem 54. Jahr mit geformt.
Jungewelt.de
DOK Leipzig is not just a festival, it’s a market.
Nonetheless, DOK Leipzig is (perhaps more than ever) a brilliantly curated festival.
What distinguishes DOK Leipzig, independent of the ups and downs of markets and competitions, are its outstanding retrospectives.
Mz-web.de
In other respects, too, the 54th edition offered a programme that focused on art and aesthetics without neglecting the political element.
Schnitt.de
In Leipzig, the balancing act seems to have given way to a membrane. It’s not just the one tightrope any more, the one injustice, but a finely spun network of questions, issues, values that will dominate the week to come.
DOK Leipzig does not have the familiar stories of the Wall, escapes and victims in store with which other channels have flooded us for a while now. No, Leipzig uses the opportunity to present “1961 Reviewed” as an excellent, extremely well-researched section which travels once around the globe to look for the stories and events which the building of the Berlin Wall pushed into the background.
LVZ-Online.de
Films like “Indian Summer” are more than an offer to audiences to examine their own horizons. Stepping out of one’s own, hermetic world for a few minutes and tracing the lives of others. It is the filmmakers’ great achievement to track down stories and find protagonists who are ready to share their lives, reveal themselves as they are and co-operate with filmmakers who are not interested in exposing them. An offer we should take advantage of.
SWR.de
It’s one of the most important film industry meeting points in Germany [...]
