In a cabin in the forest, Jean and Mana listen to various animal species and catalogue voice recordings. When they hear unfamiliar sounds, their curiosity to uncover a secret is aroused.
Jean lives as a hermit in a forest. From his cabin, he listens to and records the sounds of the animals that inhabit the surrounding area. One night, he hears the cry of an unknown animal. Along with Mana, a young girl who sings with the birds, he goes in search of the mysterious creature.
Two research trips into a possible future of humanity and the very real past of a family history combine to form a narrative about our relationship to time.
A new father visits the hometown of his mother in 1976, accompanied by his wife and baby. At the same time, the NASA Viking lander is sending the first images back to Earth from the surface of another planet. Using the father’s travel journal as a guide, and re-contextualising archival footage and photographs, this film explores our yearning to bridge a gap: the gap between parents and children, between points in space, and between the present and the past.
Far from the sea, a theater engineer builds a fully functional steampunk submarine with his friends. While escaping social reality, he questions the meaningfulness of our actions.
Theatre engineer Elias builds a fully functional steampunk submarine with his friends. While Nico rescues people from the waves of the Mediterranean, the 70-year-old artist Jim advises: “Don't do it. Don't fix cars. Rather, build something you really want to.” Elias asks himself: Is there a decision to be made between self-realisation and selfless action? On what does responsibility towards individuals or a larger society depend?
About Water and Dreams is a philosophical journey that questions the meaningfulness of our actions and dares to dream publicly in our dreamless society.
Anxious in Beirut is a personal diary that documents the events of the last two years in Lebanon – revolution, post-war, explosions, demonstrations. Living with constant anxiety, Zakaria, the film’s young director, narrates his own life while trying, on numerous occasions, to leave his country.
A box of film material from Tito-era Yugoslavia becomes a narrative engine. With dry wit and philosophical verve, this essay burrows through family and contemporary history.
The sixties and the seventies of the 20th century in our former country, a country that ceased to be. A young family moves from a rural environment to a small Slovenian town, where factories are being built and the need for a workforce is increasing. The brothers are growing up in that shaky but magical in-between, soaked in the everyday rhythms of the community, infused with the ideology of the time. Then, it happens: the sudden spectrum of film; the mystique of time itself.
22 years after they established the women's organisation Machsom Watch, its founders reveal what really happened at the checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank.
22 years after they established the women's organisation Machsom Watch, its founders reveal what really happened at the checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank between 2002 and 2012. This is the story of a group of courageous women who dedicated their lives to safeguarding human rights and peace.
The film is built on 9 short stories of the women who participate in the film. Each one of them is adding a personal view of the daily routine of the checkpoint that together crate a very powerful and moving document.
A poetic investigation of one of the largest e-waste recycling sites in the world as a contact zone of complex global economic, social, power-political, and technological processes.
A landscape of electronic equipment leftovers, embedded in biting clouds of smoke, burnt earth, and dirty water.
In Agbogbloshie – one of the world's largest e-waste recycling sites situated in the middle of Accra – electronics are dismantled and burnt in order to return their metals to the industrial recycling cycles.
In between, an observer who, by means of acoustic field research, investigates this place as a contact zone of complex global economic, social, power-political, and technological processes and questions this from a spiritual perspective.
A man on an e-scooter on the outskirts of the city. Only the rifle over his shoulder irritates. The mood of high alert is deceptive. The disaster has already happened.
Frieda, Viola and Jilou are three of the most successful women in the male-dominated breakdance world. At different points in their careers, each of them faces serious challenges.
Who says that women can't break dance? Frieda, Viola and Jilou are three of the most successful women in the male-dominated breaking world. The movie shows their tough training methods, their dance performances at international battles and their personal backgrounds that drive them to fulfil their dreams. The three friends are at different points in their sports careers and thus face new challenges and decisions that will change their lives.
B-girl Jilou is at the height of her career and counts as one of the best in the world. With her extraordinary determination, she is currently winning one battle after the other, whereas Frieda is still grappling with an injury. As a B-girl ever since the emergence of break dancing, she has to come to terms with the fact that her advancing age means she can no longer rely on her body and has to find a life outside of her professional sports career. B-girl Viola is focused on becoming recognised as a dancer and combines breaking with modern dance. For her, every battle is equally a fight for her identity as an artist.
Dancing Heartbeats is an inspiring portrait of courage, endurance, the power of one's passion, and what it means to be a young woman who is fighting for acknowledgement and equal rights.
Deserters is a film about a generation of Bosnian youth from the city of Mostar swept by the devastating war at the brink of their maturity and the tough decision to escape from it.
Deserters is a film about a generation of Bosnian youth from the city of Mostar swept by the devastating war at the brink of their maturity and the tough decision to escape from it. Their exile stories from the 90s, contained in letters mailed to the director of this film from refugee camps scattered across Europe, are confronted with the present condition of the city they were forced to leave. A film about a missing generation, exile, hard choices, and the answer to the most difficult question of any war: to stay or to run?
Srećko, Mirza and Mejra are survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Their fates are revealed in the contrast between innocent everyday moments today and archive images from that period.
The rescue of 104 castaways in the Mediterranean, person by person, step by step, in a real time documentary. Help against the clock – and the organised ignorance of the authorities.
How a sea rescue happens is beyond imagination. The documentary One Hundred and Four brings this dramatic situation closer through the rescuers' perspective.
Shortly after the distress call, several cameras accompany different situations simultaneously. Different angles offer the possibility to set a unique focus on the actions taking place in parallel. The uncut real-time documentary begins during the search for the dinghy ahead of the refugee boat and ends with the successful rescue. The situation comes to a head with the appearance of the Libyan Coast Guard and the political situation leaves the crew and the rescued people in distress for several days, as no Mediterranean country allows them to come to shore. Only after several days and an approaching thunderstorm, is a European port reached.
Golden Dove Feature-Length Film, Film Prize Leipziger Ring, Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, German Competition Documentary Film, DOK Leipzig, Germany (2023)
Emile Zuckerkandl talks about his grandmother's salon, Hitler's arrival, and his escape to Algeria. A network of personal memories interwoven with world history.
Emile Zuckerkandl jotted down in his diary, “I write it down, so that I can remember it later.” Eighty years later, his memories are vivid and clear when he talks about his grandmother's salon, Hitler's arrival after the “Anschluss,” and his escape to Algeria. Rainer Frimmel stays very close to his charismatic protagonist in recording a network of personal memories interwoven with world history.
For years, Michelle has been trying to prove her imprisoned husband’s innocence. A documentary thriller about a tireless struggle against the U.S. American justice system.
When Michelle married her long-time friend Jermaine on the bleak visiting floor of a maximum-security prison, she hoped they would soon share a life in freedom. Jermaine claims to be wrongfully convicted. He is serving a sentence of 22 years to life at the notorious Sing Sing prison near New York City. For years, Michelle has fought tirelessly to prove his innocence while also caring for her teenage children, Paul and Kaylea, as a single mother. In a gruelling routine of short phone calls, letter-writing and brief visits to the correctional facility, she dreams of an idyllic family life outside of the prison walls. As Paul and Kaylea are about to start their own lives, Michelle's quest becomes increasingly urgent. Then, a new piece of evidence is discovered in Jermaine's legal case, raising her hopes for his immediate release. Almost a decade in the making, For the Time Being is an intimate exploration of female resilience and a timely look at the far-reaching consequences of the ailing U.S. justice system.
Gedanken-Aufschluss Prize, DOK Leipzig, Germany (2023)
German Competition Documentary Film
The Gate
Jasmin Herold, Michael David Beamish
How does the omnipresence of war affect life? The film looks for answers in the “American Way” of everyday life in the vast deserts of Utah, where the U.S. Army are testing new weapons systems.
In the middle of the barren Utah desert, is the Dugway Proving Grounds – a top-secret military testing facility. Bound to this place are the lives of a soldier, a military chaplain, a father searching for his missing son, and a survivor of the atomic bomb. Their fates and fortunes reveal a country scarred by war.
A Grave on the Border is an intimate account of war and flight by Syrian refugee Rose Alkhaled. Filmed in a small town in Germany, this atmospheric short immerses the viewer in the world of Rose's memories that surface at night. Rose tells her story through emotive sculptures made out of newspaper and performances of her poetry. Quiet night-time scenes are forcefully disrupted by Rose's nightmares as they burst to the surface of her mind. The film is underscored by a compelling clarinet composition. While Rose's story is deeply personal, this film also tells the story of millions of women who were forced to flee their homeland.
Director Maren Hahnfeld's films North of Eden and Winter in Eden were screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Michigan, editor Alex Barratt's feature London Symphony was nominated for Best British Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and All the Colours of the World by composers Shrubshall and Kett was screened at the 2023 Berlinale.
DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.