Film Archive

Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Filmstill [Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]
[Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]
Klaus Wilhelm
A Soviet armoured regiment in Saxony welcomes a distinguished visitor: The Minister President arrives on Christmas Eve 1991 and meets young soldiers whose future is uncertain.
Filmstill [Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]

[Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]

[Kurt Biedenkopf besucht ein sowjetisches Panzerregiment]
Klaus Wilhelm
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
Germany
1991
8 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The Russian tricolour is already blowing in the background as Saxony’s Minister President Prof. Dr. Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet armoured regiment on Christmas Eve 1991. Those were truly turbulent times – a few months before, tanks had been rolling across Moscow’s Red Square during the August Coup; only days later, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Klaus Wilhelm
Cinematographer
Ch. Stolle
Extended Reality 2022
Filmstill [Posthuman Wombs]
[Posthuman Wombs]
Anna Fries, Malu Peeters
This auto-theoretical essay explores the womb of a posthuman, questioning stereotypical ideas of pregnancy and speculating about non-binary reproduction scenarios.
Filmstill [Posthuman Wombs]

[Posthuman Wombs]

[Posthuman Wombs]
Anna Fries, Malu Peeters
Extended Reality 2022
XR
Germany,
Netherlands,
Switzerland
2021
20 minutes
English

The stereotypical idea of pregnancy is a challenge for persons who do not define themselves as female only. This auto-theoretical essay explores the future of the family and non-binary reproduction scenarios in which all bodies can become pregnant. We travel into the womb of a posthuman and follow speculations about the de-feminisation of childbearing.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Anna Fries, Malu Peeters
Animation
Lisa Kaschubat, Manuel Tozzi
VR Developer
Ambrus Ivanyos
3D Artist
Lisa Kaschubat, Manuel Tozzi, Danielle Williams
Creative Technologist
Ambrus Ivanyos
Sound
Malu Peeters
Script
Anna Fries
Score
Malu Peeters
Performer
Brandy Butler, Anna Fries, Olivia Hyunsin Kim, Ncube as Bibi, Fercha Pombo, Kübra Uzun, Wheelymum
Director
Anna Fries, Malu Peeters
Re-Visions 2020
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100 Years of Cinema
Heinrich Sabl
A short and entertaining foray through 100 years of international cinema history: an animated man takes a walk that leads us from the magic cylinder into legendary film scenes.
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100 Years of Cinema

100 Jahre Kino
Heinrich Sabl
Re-Visions 2020
Animated Film
Germany
1994
3 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Cinema turned 100. With his homage Heinrich Sabl went one short step further back into the prehistory of cinematography for a run-up. Individual images are set in motion in a praxinoscope, invented by Émile Reynaud in 1877. A pedestrian seizes this illusion as an occasion to walk out of the magic cylinder through scenes from international film history.

Ralph Eue

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Heinrich Sabl
Script
Heinrich Sabl
Cinematographer
Hans Moser
Producer
Heinrich Sabl
Animation
Sven Pannicke
Doc Alliance Award 2022
Filmstill 5 Dreamers and a Horse
5 Dreamers and a Horse
Vahagn Khachatryan, Aren Malakyan
Four people embody the contrasting faces of Armenia today. However different their dreams may be, they are all about freedom and self-determination.
Filmstill 5 Dreamers and a Horse

5 Dreamers and a Horse

5 yerazoghnery yev dzin
Vahagn Khachatryan, Aren Malakyan
Doc Alliance Award 2022
Documentary Film
Armenia,
Germany
2022
82 minutes
Armenian
Subtitles: 
English

The four people introduced by Aren Malakyan and Vahagn Khachatryan in their debut feature-length film embody the contrasting faces of Armenia today. Some of them are making plans for the future that might even be realised, others strive for seemingly unattainable ideals. What unites them all is the dream of a self-determined life – a near-impossibility in a country where the government tries to control everything and everyone.

Melania, in her mid-sixties, works as a lift operator in a Yerevan hospital and longs for a late career as a cosmonaut. In a way, she seems to be an anachronistic remnant of the Soviet age. The deep country, still ruled by ancient traditions and ideas of happiness, is represented by the farmer Karen, who is looking for the best of all possible wives. And Amasia and Sona own the night over the roofs of the capital. They are part of a new generation ready to fight for a future in which some liberties can be obtained despite a suffocating patriarchy. Occasionally amused, but never judgmental, the two filmmakers watch their native country dream.
Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Vahagn Khachatryan, Aren Malakyan
Cinematographer
Vahagn Khachatryan, Aren Malakyan, Andranik Sahakyan
Editor
Federico Delpero Bejar
Producer
Vahagn Khachatryan
Co-Producer
Eva Blondiau
Sound
Jonathan Darch
Score
Avet Terteryan, Rafael Tunyan
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75/1

75/1
Till Kleinau
German Competition Short Film 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2020
27 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

“Boo” – the name is as unusual as the sound is special. The avant-garde composer Harry Partch invented instruments for micro-sounds and completely new musical experiences. The musician and instrument maker Thomas Meixner dedicated two years of his life, marked by family and health losses, to rebuilding 75 of these sound-generators for a concert tour. The film portrays a monomaniac who fiercely avoids social life but with great sensitivity makes material sing.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Till Kleinau
Cinematographer
Katja Tauber, Christophe Poulles
Editor
Friederike Dörffler
Producer
Friederike Dörffler
Sound
Maximilian Rodegra
German Competition 2020
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80.000 Schnitzels
Hannah Schweier
Monika has a new dream: She fights tirelessly to preserve her grandmother’s ailing inn and farm. A family chronicle and a film about life goals.
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80.000 Schnitzels

80.000 Schnitzel
Hannah Schweier
German Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Germany
2020
102 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Grandma Berta’s beloved “Zollhaus” is on the verge of ruin. She has dedicated her whole life to this inn and farm. Now her granddaughter Monika, the filmmaker’s sister, is to take over the heavily indebted family farm in the Upper Palatinate. What makes Monika decide to give up her previous plans and move to the countryside to live with her grandmother? The director decides to follow her sister for one year during this apparent labour of Sisyphus.

Monika puts all her energy into the ailing farm and is constantly confronted with its history: Grandma Berta’s schnitzel was legendary. But only the jukebox is left of the merry evenings in a packed inn. Berta had to bury her husband, two of her sons and a grandson. She is not a woman of tender words and unsparingly direct, which soon leads to conflict. The director at first watches her indefatigable sister in stunned disbelief. But gradually she understands that Monika has found a new dream in the “Zollhaus”. This enables her to offer an intimate insight into the chronicle of a family. The film confronts us with the universal question when it is the right time to live one’s dreams and how quickly this time may pass.
Annina Wettstein

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Hannah Schweier
Cinematographer
Stefanie Reinhard
Editor
Romy Steyer
Producer
Stefan Sporbert
Co-Producer
ZDF
Sound
Johannes Kunz
Score
Ella Zwietnig
Narrator
Hannah Schweier
Winner of: ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
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98 kg

98 kg
Izabela Plucińska
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2021
Animated Film
Germany,
Poland
2021
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The cycle of domestic violence: tension, escalation, remorse, and then all over again. The woman in Izabela Plucińska’s film shares the fate of many sufferers: She can’t manage to break out. The metaphorical dumbbells she would have to lift to do it weigh 98 kilograms – like the man who does this to her. All she can do is dissolve, disappear and breathe silently into her individual parts. The animations keep erasing themselves, but painful marks are left behind.

Kim Busch

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Izabela Plucińska
Editor
Daniela Kinateder
Producer
Paulina Ratajczak, Izabela Plucińska
Sound
Andrea Martignoni
Score
Andrea Martignoni
Animation
Izabela Plucińska
World Sales
Maciej Reguła
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A Black Jesus

A Black Jesus
Luca Lucchesi
Competition for the Audience Award 2020
Documentary Film
Germany
2020
92 minutes
English,
French,
Italian
Subtitles: 
English

In Siculiana, a small Sicilian town full of flaking facades, religiosity is lived out as a matter of course. And of course the figure of Jesus Christ worshipped here is black, and always has been. However, some people cannot get used to their dark-skinned neighbours in the refugee camp. The camera accompanies locals and stranded people along their paths, which often lead to the church, but not necessarily together, and draws a kind of map of the city in black-on-black contrasts.

It’s become quiet in Siculiana, a local says. He’s not referring to the loud demonstrations against the Villa Sikania, now converted into a refugee reception camp. And certainly not to the colourful flurry of activity that grips the city every year as the faithful prepare for the feast of the Finding of the Cross. That’s when they hang up the “Benvenuti” sign. But who exactly is welcomed here? The pomp and circumstance of the festivities are at the centre of this filmic portrait of a community in which the alleged common ground is disintegrating into voice and skin tones: between the black people from abroad and the black man on the cross who – according to an elderly lady – was forced to “darken” himself in order to incorporate human sins. Between an aging city stylised to the point of becoming scenery and God’s newly arrived children who promise a future and who could bring new life into the alleys.
Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Luca Lucchesi
Script
Hella Wenders, Luca Lucchesi
Cinematographer
Luca Lucchesi
Editor
Luca Lucchesi, Edoardo Morabito
Producer
Léa Germain, Wim Wenders
Co-Producer
Eric Friedler, Silke Schütze
Sound
Francesco Vitaliti
Score
Roy Paci
World Sales
Christa Auderlitzky
Broadcaster
Eric Friedler
Funder
Nordmedia
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A Million

A Million
Arata Mori
Camera Lucida – Out of Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Japan,
Germany
2021
65 minutes
Japanese
Subtitles: 
English

The account of a journey through an imaginary city, filmed along China’s new trade routes. Like the fictionalized Marco Polo from Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”, the traveller in this film talks of worlds that resemble familiar places but follow their own, sometimes seemingly incredible rules. The observations condense into a meditation about the nature of cities and the transformation of the concept of globalization.

The foreign visitor’s voice sounds muffled, as if it were coming out of the cave whose interior views open the film. Time and again, the eye returns there – but the fluorescent rock faces soon turn into the sparkle of distant galaxies, the narrow confines of the cave indistinguishable from the vastness of space. It is a symbol of the decoupling of sign and meaning, of “real” and “false”, of sensual impressions and their positive geographical allocation that pervades the film: Daft Punk perform in front of a Chinese shopping mall; the Eiffel Tower stands first in a housing estate, then, folded up to a fraction of its size, in view of Big Ben and Tower Bridge.
Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Arata Mori
Cinematographer
Arata Mori
Editor
Arata Mori
Producer
Arata Mori
Co-Producer
Andreas Hartmann, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
Sound
Philippe Ciompi
Score
Yu Miyashita
Filmstill A Provincial Hospital

A Provincial Hospital

A Provincial Hospital
Ilian Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva
Panorama Middle and Eastern Europe 2022
Documentary Film
Bulgaria,
Germany
2022
110 minutes
Bulgarian
Subtitles: 
English

Kyustendil, a city in the Bulgarian mountains, was hit hard by Covid. The local hospital is probably a reasonably representative microcosm of how the medical staff dealt with the worst consequences of the pandemic. Ten years after his debut “Sofia’s Last Ambulance” (DOK Leipzig 2012), Ilian Metev returns with another film about a national health system that opposes the virus with gallows humour and individual commitment.

Metev himself was stuck in London during the shooting, monitoring from afar as co-director Teneva and her colleague Chertov collected the material and edited it alone. The focus is on the hospital staff. And if there is one main protagonist among the countless members of the cast, it’s Dr. Popov. Warm-hearted and always ready with a quip, we even often see him without a mask – the other employees are usually hidden behind protective gear. They all share a tough sense of humour to get them through the days and nights. The logistical challenges of such a film project also crop up: The people with the cameras are frequently mentioned and addressed. In this emergency community of patients, doctors and film crew they seem to be always ready to joke. But death, up in the intensive care unit, is very close.
Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ilian Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva
Script
Ilian Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva
Cinematographer
Ivan Chertov
Editor
Ilian Metev
Producer
Martichka Bozhilova, Ilian Metev, Ingmar Trost
Sound
Zlatina Teneva
Sound Design
Ivan Andreev, Adrian Lo
World Sales
Marcella Jelić
Nominated for: MDR Film Prize
German Competition 2021
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A Sound of My Own
Rebecca Zehr
A visually and aurally outstanding film about the musician Marja Burchard, leader of the legendary band “Embryo”. An ode to hearing, experimentation and inspiration.
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A Sound of My Own

A Sound of My Own
Rebecca Zehr
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
52 minutes
English,
German
Subtitles: 
English

She first appeared on stage at the age of eleven with the legendary Krautrock band “Embryo”. Her father, Christian Burchard, founded the band in 1969 and led it until 2016. Today – in her mid-thirties – Marja Burchard is the bandleader in this project, which has become a kind of family for her. But what seems so simple and organic is far from self-evident in an extremely male-dominated sphere, as Rebecca Zehr shows in her precisely observed and designed film.

This strictly and yet lightly composed melange mixes archival footage, psychedelic animation sequences and everyday observations of the normal life of a female musician between organisation and inspiration. With the visual level restricted to black and white and thus deliberately restrained, all the more attention is focused at the sound. The – who wonders? – outstanding score never takes the music for granted but works robustly with our perception. It’s the lucid, calm images and the narrative that is always anchored in the here and now that let this film stay incredibly haptic despite its concentration on our sense of hearing. Rebecca Zehr is not interested in portraying a musical legend, but in showing us what it could look and feel like to not only make music but live in it.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Rebecca Zehr
Cinematographer
Felix Press
Editor
Melanie Jilg
Producer
Rebecca Zehr, Katharina Rabl, University of Television and Film Munich (HFF)
Sound
Rebecca Zehr
Score
Marja Burchard
World Sales
Tina Janker
Winner of: Golden Dove (German Competition)
Animation Perspectives 2022
Filmstill About AIVA – Director’s Short Cut
About AIVA – Director’s Short Cut
Veneta Androva
Who is the clever mind behind “AIVA”, the absolutely incredible AI novelty everyone talks about? An avatar with a female voice introduces themselves as the inventor.
Filmstill About AIVA – Director’s Short Cut

About AIVA – Director’s Short Cut

About AIVA – Director’s Short Cut
Veneta Androva
Animation Perspectives 2022
Animated Film
Germany
2020
3 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

Who is the clever mind behind “AIVA”, the absolutely incredible AI novelty that everyone talks about and wants to have? An avatar with a female voice, unfolding in two dimensions like a pattern, praises their successful multi-million-pound project. Answers are not provided, just another ghastly feedback loop of artificiality.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Veneta Androva
Editor
Veneta Androva
Producer
Veneta Androva
Animation
Veneta Androva
Filmstill One of Us Now

One of Us Now

Achshav at ahat mishelanu
Maya Steinberg
German Competition Short Film 2022
Documentary Film
Germany,
Israel
2022
30 minutes
Hebrew,
English
Subtitles: 
English

Maya Steinberg is a secular Israeli. Her father, however, had a late religious awakening. He will not appear in her film. Instead, the young director approaches his faith and her lack of understanding for it through a visit to the gravesite of rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Galilee, where she spends a few weeks, observing believers, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox, and wondering: Is there a place here for women? And can there be a place for queer women?

Marie Kloos

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Maya Steinberg
Cinematographer
Eline Gehring, Maya Steinberg
Editor
Maya Steinberg
Producer
Maya Steinberg
Sound
Eline Gehring, Maya Steinberg
Sound Design
Manuela Schininá
Score
Sivan Levy
Kids DOK 2021
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Monkey Domino
Ulf Grenzer
A day at the zoo. An orangutan and a girl have fun fooling around. Until the father’s business dealings trigger a chain of events that changes everything.
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Monkey Domino

Affendomino
Ulf Grenzer
Kids DOK 2021
Animated Film
Germany
2021
4 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

A day at the zoo, the orangutan sits in his cage and dreams of his life in the jungle when a girl comes by and brightens his dull afternoon. Her father doesn’t notice anything because he is on his mobile and laptop all the time to do important business. So important that the orangutan has to intervene, and a chain of event changes everything.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ulf Grenzer
Script
Ulf Grenzer, Franka Sachse
Editor
Ulf Grenzer
Producer
Ulf Grenzer, Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF
Sound
Kevin Jahnel, Anna Magdalino
Score
Ephraim Peise
Animation
Ulf Grenzer
Narrator
Helene Lorenz, Boris Schwiebert
Animation Perspectives 2022
Filmstill AIVA
AIVA
Veneta Androva
AIVA is an artist animated by algorithms. But first and foremost, she is the chillingly limited male tech vision of what more diversity in the arts could look like.
Filmstill AIVA

AIVA

AIVA
Veneta Androva
Animation Perspectives 2022
Animated Film
Germany
2020
13 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

AIVA is an artist animated by algorithms. But first and foremost, she is the tech vision of male IT commitment to more diversity in the arts. Which is why AIVA prefers the “portrait” format in her paintings. An “art documentary” lets us share her creative process and fulfils every stereotype at hand. With unerring wit, Veneta Androva mirrors actual conditions in her computer animated science fiction.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Veneta Androva
Script
Veneta Androva
Editor
Veneta Androva
Producer
Veneta Androva
Score
Nadia D’Alò, Benedikt Frey
Animation
Veneta Androva
Narrator
Vivienne Pettitt
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AIVA

AIVA
Veneta Androva
German Competition Short Film 2020
Animated Film
Germany
2020
13 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

AIVA is an artist, animated by algorithms. But above all she is the soberingly limited male tech vision of what more diversity in the arts could look like. In her paintings AIVA prefers the vertical, to some acclaim. A naive and cliché-ridden “art documentary” lets us participate in her work. Precisely observed, with sparse gestures and trenchant wit, Veneta Androva reflects a current status quo in her computer-animated future fiction.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Veneta Androva
Script
Veneta Androva
Editor
Veneta Androva
Producer
Veneta Androva
Score
Nadia D’Alò, Benedikt Frey
Animation
Veneta Androva
Narrator
Vivienne Pettitt