Film Archive

Opening Film 2021
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The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea
Offer Avnon
After ten years in Germany, the filmmaker returns to Israel and takes stock of that time, but also looks at his homeland from a changed perspective.
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The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea

Der Rhein fließt ins Mittelmeer
Offer Avnon
Opening Film 2021
Documentary Film
Israel
2021
95 minutes
German,
Hebrew,
English,
Polish
Subtitles: 
English

After ten years in Germany, where he acquired “the beautiful language of the former arch enemy”, the filmmaker returns to Haifa and takes stock of the time spent between the rivers Rhine and Neisse, but also looks at his home from a changed perspective. The result is a complex montage of images from those years: conversations, landscapes and objects, sought and found in Germany, Poland and Israel.

“The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea” attempts the Sisyphean task of a localization between philo- and anti-Semites, the anxious and the indifferent, those who remember and those who suppress. Not an image or sentence that doesn’t trigger a multitude of associations. The devil is in the detail: This film opens our eyes to this. What are the traumas that perpetuate the Holocaust, which the filmmaker, son of a Polish survivor, was unable to forget, “never, not for a single day” in all those years in Germany? What mechanisms of suppression are at work among the relatives of the perpetrators, of the victims? How is the perception, the mind, the memory of the individual shaped by belonging to a nation, a religion or political group? Offer Avnon gives fragmentary answers and each raises new questions. The search for the “uncanny” he began with his film is far from over.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Offer Avnon
Editor
Offer Avnon
Producer
Offer Avnon
Re-Visions 2020
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Rabbit
Run Wrake
An unsuspecting rabbit scampers through the land of childhood. It’s the host animal of a powerful magic goblin who teaches the little ones virtues like greed, envy and avarice.
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Rabbit

Rabbit
Run Wrake
Re-Visions 2020
Animated Film
UK
2005
9 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

A distant idyll featuring well-behaved children at play: a prettily illustrated and well-labelled world. An unsuspecting rabbit scampers there which may be cute but can also be tortured and slaughtered. And when a goblin who can turn insects into flashing diamonds springs from the dead body, one would have to be a stupid child indeed not to smell a business opportunity. Good children! Bad children!

Ralph Eue

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Run Wrake
Script
Run Wrake
Editor
Rich White
Producer
Run Wrake
Score
Howie B, Craig Richards
Animation
Run Wrake, Martin Morris, Murray John, Barnaby Hewlett
World Sales
LUX Distribution
Kids DOK 2023
Filmstill Rally
Rally
Myojung Noh
Tyrano and Brachi want to play tennis. The match doesn’t quite work out because Brachi keeps falling over. Tyrano tries everything so that Brachi doesn’t hurt himself.
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Rally

Rally
Myojung Noh
Kids DOK 2023
Animated Film
South Korea
2023
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Nobody likes to play tennis with Tyrano so he endlessly hits the ball against the wall – until one day he meets Brachi. Playing a match, however, doesn’t quite work out as Brachi keeps falling over. Tyrano tries everything to make Brachi stay and finds out in the end that all the other dinos have their problems, too. But hey, whatever!

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Myojung Noh
Script
Myojung Noh
Cinematographer
Myojung Noh
Editor
Myojung Noh
Producer
Myojung Noh
Sound
Mothervibes
Sound Design
Mothervibes
Score
Mothervibes
Animation
Myojung Noh
World Sales
Jinsan Kim
Filmstill Ramboy

Ramboy

Ramboy
Matthias Joulaud, Lucien Roux
International Competition Short Film 2022
Documentary Film
Switzerland
2022
30 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

Sixteen-year-old Cian is expected to work at his family’s sheep farm after school. Life there is as rough as the Irish west coast landscape. No time to lie in or play football. Instead, rams must be taken by the horns. In this sensitive coming-of-age study, the camera watches the lanky boy from up close as he learns the challenging craft of shepherding, under his grandfather’s patient and critical eyes.

Daniel Abma

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Matthias Joulaud, Lucien Roux
Cinematographer
Matthias Joulaud, Lucien Roux
Editor
Selin Dettwiler
Producer
Jaber Debzi, Jean-Guillaume Sonnier
Sound
Yatoni Roy Cantu
Score
Yatoni Roy Cantu
Winner of: Special Mention (International Competition Short Film)
German Competition 2021
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Reality Must Be Addressed
Johanna Seggelke
When you meet your twin soul at the other end of the world but the fascination does not survive the transfer to everyday life … An intoxicatingly raw coming-of-age story.
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Reality Must Be Addressed

Reality Must Be Addressed
Johanna Seggelke
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
53 minutes
English,
German
Subtitles: 
English

“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” Even though Sky and Johanna definitely did not have this quote by Mark Twain in mind, it’s written in the stars of the two young women’s journey through South Africa. A chance acquaintance turns into a relationship that shimmers in all the colours of love. Between Marmite toasts, joints, selfies and music they explore each other inside out. But what happens when the journey ends?

In this deeply personal piece, filmmaker Johanna Seggelke chooses a very different approach to its predecessor, “Bibi Must Go” from 2020. She questions herself, her feelings and memories and almost casually unfolds an enchanting coming-of-age story about a love that emerges and fades in the seemingly endless summer. With a light hand, the film maintains the delicate balance between shimmering beauty and incidentality and manages to make the complicated dialectics of intimacy and strangeness palpable. The outstanding montage interweaves feathery holiday videos with an extraordinary score and the director’s sometimes wonderfully quirky, sometimes wise reflections. A delightfully direct film which preserves the rough edges of the moment and at the same time tries to outwit the undeceivability of one’s own emotions – at least for the time it takes to smoke a cigarette.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Johanna Seggelke
Cinematographer
Vi R. Spengler, Johanna Seggelke
Editor
Marie Zrenner
Producer
Johanna Seggelke, Kerstin Zachau, University of Television and Film Munich (HFF)
Sound
Cornelia Böhm
Score
Silvius Sonvilla
Winner of: Young Eyes Film Award
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Rebels

Rebellinnen – Fotografie. Underground. DDR.
Pamela Meyer-Arndt
Competition for the Audience Award 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
88 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

The rough, unkempt facades in Prenzlauer Berg – as if the skin had been peeled off the houses, says photographer Tina Bara. Having grown up in a prefabricated building, the young woman was drawn to East Berlin. She quickly got in conflict with the state, just like the artists Cornelia Schleime and Gabriele Stötzer, whom director Pamela Meyer-Arndt questions in her film about memories, traumas and creative genesis.

Stötzer, Schleime, Bara – none of them had it easy in the GDR. One of them ended up in prison for a petition, the other was harried by refused exit permits, all of them suffered psychologically to the point of pain. Spying, abuse and oppression are reflected in the women’s works. Tina Bara’s dark self-portraits, taken in a sparse Berlin apartment, Cornelia Schleime’s paintings denounced as “garbage art”, Gabriele Stötzer’s photo series of women in cut-up dresses and runny make up – testimonies of desperation, but also evidence of the urge for unconditional self-expression. Meyer-Arndt visits the artists, rediscovers places from the past with them and observes the creation of new works. The narratives shock and touch, and at the same time inspire awe for the vehemently chosen paths in life which more than once skirted very close to the abyss.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Pamela Meyer-Arndt
Cinematographer
Lars Barthel
Editor
Andreas Zitzmann
Producer
Andreas Schroth, Irene Höfer
Sound
Nic Nagel, Pamela Meyer-Arndt
Score
Ulrike Haage
Nominated for: DEFA Sponsoring Prize, Gedanken Aufschluss Prize
Time to Act! 2022
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Rebellion
Maia Kenworthy, Elena Sánchez Bellot
A thrilling and yet complex examination of “Extinction Rebellion” that doesn’t gloss over the group’s internal controversies about political strategies.
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Rebellion

Rebellion
Maia Kenworthy, Elena Sánchez Bellot
Time to Act! 2022
Documentary Film
UK
2021
82 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

“Extinction Rebellion” (XR), known for creative civil disobedience, blockades and performances, want to put pressure on politics to finally adopt effective measures against the climate crisis. The greater the attention, the greater the effect, that’s their hope. But will this equation work? And how can such a heterogenous movement take joint decisions? “Rebellion” follows the development of the first XR group in Great Britain from up close, showing both euphoric moments and heated debates. After all, the issue is whether change is possible without questioning power structures – in society, but also within their own ranks.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Maia Kenworthy, Elena Sánchez Bellot
Cinematographer
Amy Newstead, Maia Kenworthy, Elena Sánchez Bellot, Tom Swindell
Editor
Michael Nollet
Producer
Kat Mansoor
Sound
Rick Blything, Nikky French, Oscar Crawford
Score
Wayne Roberts
Kids DOK 2022
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Red House
Barry Doupé
The red house rapidly transforms into a series of fantastic images and figures. In no time at all, all kinds of brightly coloured shapes appear on the screen.
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Red House

Red House
Barry Doupé
Kids DOK 2022
Animated Film
Canada
2022
3 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The red house dissolves and transforms into all kinds of other things. The house re-assembles, but bigger and wider than before. Quicker than the eye can see, all kinds of brightly coloured shapes appear on the screen. What was a clown a second ago suddenly becomes a wild mix of fantastic images and figures. And right in the middle, the red house keeps turning up.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Barry Doupé
Cinematographer
Barry Doupé
Editor
Barry Doupé
Producer
Barry Doupé
Sound
James Whitman
Sound Design
James Whitman
Score
James Whitman
Animation
Barry Doupé
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Reeducated

Reeducated
Sam Wolson
Extended Reality 2021
-
Kazakhstan,
USA
2021
21 minutes
English,
Kazakh

In spring 2017, authorities in China’s Xinjiang region, without any legal basis, began detaining thousands of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in so-called re-education camps. This animated 360° film reconstructs the memories of three men who had to endure political indoctrination, torture and solitary confinement.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Ben Mauk, Sam Wolson, Nicholas Rubin, Matt Huynh
Executive Producer
Soo-Jeong Kang, Monica Racic
Artistic Design
Matt Huynh
Creative Technologist
Nicholas Rubin
VFX Artist
Nicholas Rubin
Sound
Jon Bernson
Script
Sam Wolson, Ben Mauk
Score
Jon Bernson
Narrator
Amanzhan Seituly, Erbaqyt Otarbai, Orynbek Koksebek
Key Collaborator
Nicholas Rubin, Ben Mauk, Matt Huynh
Director
Sam Wolson
Panorama Short Film 2022
Filmstill Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse
Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse
Ivana Bošnjak Volda, Thomas Johnson Volda
Absent-minded everyday routines at the “White Horse” café overlap with daydreams and sound loops, until reality loses the ground beneath its feet.
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Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse

Sjeti se kako sam jahala bijelog konja
Ivana Bošnjak Volda, Thomas Johnson Volda
Panorama Short Film 2022
Animated Film
Croatia
2022
10 minutes
Croatian
Subtitles: 
English

In the “White Horse” café, waitress and guests apathetically go through their routines. Meanwhile, the reality surrounding them seems to destabilise more and more: between white noise and the sound of tuning forks, between daydreams of galloping knights and ever-growing mountains of drizzling packet sugar. Ivana Bošniak Volda and Thomas Johnson Volda pile up layers of these images and sounds, until they crack – and clear the way to breathe.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ivana Bošnjak Volda, Thomas Johnson Volda
Script
Ivana Bošnjak Volda, Thomas Johnson Volda
Cinematographer
Ivan Slipčević
Editor
Iva Kraljević
Producer
Igor Grubić
Sound
Hrvoje Nikšić
Sound Design
Hrvoje Nikšić
Score
Hrvoje Nikšić
Animation
Ivana Bošnjak Volda, Thomas Johnson Volda
World Sales
Vanja Andrijević
Narrator
Iva Kraljević
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
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Republic of Silence

Republic of Silence
Diana El Jeiroudi
International Competition 2021
Documentary Film
France,
Germany,
Italy,
Qatar,
Syria
2021
183 minutes
Arabic,
English,
German,
Kurdish
Subtitles: 
English

Silence reigns in the Berlin flat, but the film, whose complex montage encompasses the disintegration of Syria and life in exile, leaves no doubt that things are different in director Diana El Jeiroudi’s mind. Archival footage, loose portraits of confidants and an intimate perspective that explores her own position and her way of coping with trauma add up to a multi-layered document.

“Evil has a very loud and terrifying sound,” El Jeiroudi already noted as a child. Growing up in a country marked by surveillance and military parades has left its mark. In “Republic of Silence”, she looks for a way to come to terms with it, condensing old material, some of which shot in Syria, with a written monologue and stories of persons who also chose exile in the course of the civil war. The result is a complex filmic space that reveals the political and social disintegration of a nation. El Jeiroudi increasingly concentrates on showing a present outside Syria, life in emigration. Passing her husband's  nocturnal teeth grinding, birthday parties and disruptions in the international film festival scene, a life between tension and new beginnings becomes apparent.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Diana El Jeiroudi
Script
Diana El Jeiroudi
Cinematographer
Sebastian Bäumler, Diana El Jeiroudi, Orwa Nyrabia, Guevara Namer
Editor
Katja Dringenberg, Diana El Jeiroudi
Producer
Orwa Nyrabia, Diana El Jeiroudi
Co-Producer
Camille Laemlé
Sound
Raphaël Girardot, Nathalie Vidal, Pascal Capitolin
Winner of: Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, Honourable Mendtion (International Competition)
Extended Reality: DOK Neuland 2021
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Revelation 360
Reed O’Beirne
A mirror sculpture at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London: There seems to be nothing there. Or is there? The limits of our imagination become the true narrative.

UK

UK
2021
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Revelation 360

Revelation 360
Reed O’Beirne
Extended Reality 2021
-
UK
2021
6 minutes
English

Nothing meets everything in a digital moment of limbo. We find ourselves in the middle of a mirror sculpture at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. There seems to be nothing there, but we are repeatedly asked to see more. The limits of our imagination and orientation become the true narrative. We could escape it at any time. But what would we be missing then?

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Reed O’Beirne
Production Company
Reedoco
Editor
Reed O’Beirne
Creative Technologist
Reed O’Beirne
Sound
Sam Gray
Script
Reed O’Beirne
Narrator
Heather Tracy
Key Collaborator
Kamila Kuc
Director
Reed O’Beirne
Cinematographer
Reed O’Beirne
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Revolution 21

Rewolucja 21
Martyna Peszko
Competition for the Audience Award 2022
Documentary Film
Poland
2022
53 minutes
Polish
Subtitles: 
English

Inspired by a political protest movement, the Teatr 21 – a theatre company of acting enthusiasts with Down’s syndrome – develops a play in which the participants articulate their wishes and demands and at the same time get to abandon themselves with great joy to creative development. Martyna Peszko attentively follows the creation process as it unfolds in a productively bustling rehearsal atmosphere, with musical accents provided by the improvisations of a free jazz trio.

In 2018, people with handicaps occupied the government building in Warsaw for forty days to demonstrate for more support and recognition. The protest had almost no political consequences, and yet: The revolutionary spark ignited the public. The Teatr 21 project takes up the events, draws strength from the disappointment about the failed insurgence. That leads to discussions about their artistic craft: What does professional acting mean? What has nudity to do with revolution? And why do you always have to understand the lyrics to songs? In exploring the relationship between performance and politics, they reclaim an autonomy they are often denied in life: over their own body, their own stories. The stage direction and dramaturgy provide an unobtrusive and intelligent framework, which is extended by Peszko’s judiciously observant workshop report.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Martyna Peszko
Script
Martyna Peszko
Cinematographer
Magda Mosiewicz
Editor
Olga Kalagate
Producer
Justyna Sobczyk
Co-Producer
Katarzyna Tymusz
Sound
Adam Buka, Martyna Peszko, Konrad Wosik
Score
Zespol Pokusa
World Sales
Katarzyna Wilk
Nominated for: Young Eyes Film Award, MDR Film Prize, Leipziger Ring
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Rift Finfinnee

Rift Finfinnee
Daniel Kötter
German Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Ethiopia,
Germany
2020
79 minutes
Amharic,
Oromo
Subtitles: 
German

Socio-geographic explorations on the periphery of Addis Ababa, run through by a variety of borders and rifts – between agrarian and urban spatial practices, between economic and linguistic floes, between perspective and dilemma. A polyphonic audiovisual narrative of people who are forced to experience the impetuous urbanisation of African societies the hard way, recorded as a case study that expands into a complex allegory.

Addis Ababa (Finfinnee in the language of the rural Oromo people) is a rapidly growing East African metropolis. “Rift Finfinnee” evolves from the concrete observation of main and side effects of urbanisation in four extremely different settlements, located within sight of each other on the eastern outskirts of the Ethiopian capital, to an expansive composition about the dynamics of an urban turbo modernisation. The Great Rift Valley currently still (!) constitutes a both natural and symbolic barrier to limit the further tentacle-like expansion of the megacity into agricultural territory – across this and other rifts. This interim report on the situation at the rifts probes the field of tension created by unstable pasts, unreliable futures and a contested present.
Ralph Eue

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Daniel Kötter
Cinematographer
Daniel Kötter
Editor
Daniel Kötter
Producer
Meike Martens
Sound
Marcin Lenarczyk
Score
Getatchew Merkuria
World Sales
Angelika Ramlow
Winner of: DEFA Sponsoring Prize
Audience Award Competition 2020
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Robin’s Hood
Jasmin Baumgartner
Robin, president of the Vienna football club RSV, loves his “dirty rotten bunch”. Passion is his recipe. That goes for moral courage, discipline and parties.
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Robin’s Hood

Robin’s Hood
Jasmin Baumgartner
Competition for the Audience Award 2020
Documentary Film
Austria
2020
93 minutes
English,
German,
Serbian
Subtitles: 
German

Fluctuation at the Vienna football club RSV is high. Coach Robin, who once hosted parties at the Prater sauna, sees his club as a political project, too: Players from various birth nations come together in his “dirty rotten bunch”. Athletic highlights are quite often followed by relegation, discipline and excess are cheek by jowl at RSV. Director Jasmin Baumgartner has followed Robin and his team over several years.

“My players are like my kids”, Robin says. And kids can be exhausting. They are caught with joints by the police on their way to the Slovenian training camp or prefer to go to the casino instead of completing their training units. But even president Robin isn’t averse to parties. On the sidelines of the amateur league it can get boozy and often rough: Opposing fans insult and discriminate against black athletes in particular. A behaviour for which Robin has no patience at all. He sees it this way: “If we integrate the super sweet Muslim fraction in our club, with our Serbian nationalists, uneducated Austrians and our Muslim-hating Congolese players, then we’ll not only be promoted to the fourth division. We’ll even stop the rise of the right-wing nationalists.”
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Jasmin Baumgartner
Cinematographer
Anna Hawliczek, Olga Kosanovic
Editor
Matthias Writze
Producer
Jasmin Baumgartner
Co-Producer
Dominic Spitaler
Score
Nvie Motho
Winner of: Gedanken Aufschluss Prize
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Roman’s Childhood

Romano vaikystė
Linas Mikuta
International Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Lithuania
2020
50 minutes
Lithuanian,
Russian
Subtitles: 
English, German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing

Romanas, his parents Aivaras and Diana and their little dog live in a cramped place in the Lithuanian harbour town of Klaipėda. Linas Mikuta takes an unprejudiced look at a loving family structure where dreams are interpreted, worries are shared and news negotiated over cigarettes and cake, while at the same time the narrative of a timeless childhood summer full of headstands by the side of the road, somersaults on the beach and afternoons in box houses unfolds.

With his friends Romanas roams through ruins, neighbourhoods and along the coast. The eight-year-old conquers his own worlds, lives in his own time. The result is a portrait of a wealth of relationships and resilience at a precarious place that’s completely of the moment. Everyday rituals, care and community are captured in humorous, warm tableaus and light-drenched exterior shots. This film knows about the great love in small things. It knows about pop songs that hit you right in the heart, about tears you are not left alone with, and that playing with the waves between the green sea and the white sand means all the world.
Djamila Grandits

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Linas Mikuta
Script
Linas Mikuta
Cinematographer
Kristina Sereikaitė
Editor
Linas Mikuta
Producer
Linas Mikuta
Sound
Jonas Maksvytis
Score
David Hilowitz