Film Archive

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“Hello,” We Lied

“Hello,” We Lied
Laura Gamse
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2020
Documentary Film
USA
2020
12 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

Journalism in the U.S. is in crisis. Jestin Coler, also known as the “fake news king”, most likely contributed to this when headlines from his satirical web page were picked up and believed by the mainstream. Coler describes fake news as a gateway drug and, ironically, as an antidote at the same time. In her film, director Laura Gamse scrolls through news and memes and thereby impressively comments on the state of Western societies.

Kim Busch

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Laura Gamse
Producer
Daydream Reels
Score
Mike Diva, Steven O’Brien, Lostboyevsky, Sony Cleveland, Greg Sinibaldi, Jesse Canterbury
Animation
Mike Diva, Bernard Myburgh
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
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A Man and His Dog Out for Air
Robert Breer
Birdsong and meandering lines, sometimes solo, sometimes as a swarm movement. A park landscape, a staircase, and a man with a dog emerge fleetingly from the permanently changing forms.
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A Man and His Dog Out for Air

A Man and His Dog Out for Air
Robert Breer
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Animated Film
USA
1957
2 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Birdsong and meandering lines, sometimes solo, sometimes as a swarm movement. In their midst a park landscape, a staircase, and a man with a dog seem to emerge fleetingly. In Robert Breer’s minimalist drawn animation, the abstract and the figurative briefly overlap, then fall apart again. The permanent change of the forms follows the pulse rate of the birdsong recorded in nature.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Robert Breer
Editor
Robert Breer
Sound
Frannie Breer
Animation
Robert Breer
Audience Competition 2023
Filmstill A Still Small Voice
A Still Small Voice
Luke Lorentzen
Mati, a New York hospital chaplain in training, must watch herself and her own strength when she looks after patients. An intimate insight, up close and sensitive.
Filmstill A Still Small Voice

A Still Small Voice

A Still Small Voice
Luke Lorentzen
Audience Competition 2023
Documentary Film
USA
2023
93 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing

Mount Sinai Hospital in New York is one of the largest and oldest hospitals in the United States. Mati, an aspiring hospital chaplain, works here. She is about to complete her one-year residency in the department of “Spiritual Care,” a branch of palliative medicine. Patients struggling with insecurity, trauma and grief get emotional and spiritual support here. The film follows Mati and her colleagues through 2020 and 2021, the years with the highest number of deaths in the history of the USA. Mati herself must struggle daily to find her balance. Because, as her supervisor puts it, if one’s own bandwidth is used up, there is simply no room left for the tougher things. It is therefore an important part of the work of a counsellor to get support and guidance for oneself.

Luke Lorentzen observes this cosmos with great sensitivity and, despite being so close, with pleasant restraint. The calm camera often keeps its distance, especially in moments of doubt or when observing conflicts in the team. A film unafraid of intimacy that spans a thought-provoking arc: between questions of faith, loss and professional sustainability.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Luke Lorentzen
Cinematographer
Luke Lorentzen
Editor
Luke Lorentzen
Producer
Kellen Quinn, Luke Lorentzen
Co-Producer
Ashleigh McArthur, Robina Riccitiello
Sound
César González Cortés, Javier Quesada
World Sales
Andrea Hock
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Atomu

Atomu
Shariffa Ali, Yetunde Dada
Extended Reality 2021
-
France,
Kenya,
USA,
UK
2020
12 minutes
English

In the mythology of the Kikuyu community the Mugumo, the Kenyan fig tree, represents transformation and rebirth. This multiplayer VR experience invites us to witness a sacred ritual: Dancing around the Mugumo can turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man. We follow Waicici, a genderless person, in the quest for the most honest version of themselves.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Antoine Cayrol, Steve Jelly
Co-Producer
Steve Jelly, Arnaud Colinart, Opeyemi Olukemi, Rafael Pavon, Annick Jakobowicz, Simon Windsor
Production Company
POV Spark, France Télévisions, Dimension, Atlas V
Choreographer
Stephen Buescher
Key Collaborator
Andrew Orkin, Banna Dasta, Toby Coffey, Steve Jelly, Simon Windsor, Akash Kushwaha, Annick Jakobowicz, Stephen Buescher, Opeyemi Olukemi, Arnaud Colinart, Rafael Pavon, Antoine Cayrol, Derren Sinnott
Director
Shariffa Ali, Yetunde Dada
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Bulletproof

Bulletproof
Todd Chandler
Competition for the Audience Award 2020
Documentary Film
USA
2020
83 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing

At American high schools, the threat of school shootings has become omnipresent. In addition to regular drills of how to act in case of assault, security forces and metal detectors are now part of everyday life in the schools. In the name of security, a whole industry is busy developing bulletproof hoodies and blackboards, arming teachers and installing ever more surveillance devices. Is this prevention? Or a self-fulfilling prophecy?

While cheerleaders rehearse, basketball teams play and homecoming queens are crowned, adults in the background prepare for the emergency: What to do if a school is attacked – from inside or outside? Behaviour and meditation training to prevent violence in the first place are one thing. More money, however, is spent on armament. The so-called security industry has long entered the school market. Todd Chandler’s restrained observation takes a look at the arms and service industries and the media, at social psychologists as well as teachers. He cleverly focuses not on individual schools and incidents but rather on how a whole system responds to a threat.
Marie Kloos

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Todd Chandler
Cinematographer
Emily Topper
Editor
Todd Chandler, Shannon Kennedy
Producer
Danielle Varga, Todd Chandler
Sound
Ryan Billia
Score
Troy Herion
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Burp

Burp
Ethan Barrett
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2020
Animated Film
USA
2019
10 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Eating dirt and burping with relish – an earthworm refuses to be satisfied with this embarrassing evolutionary outcome for his species and sets out to learn better things. But imitating many-legged and winged insects does not result in distinguished behaviour but rather leads to mortal danger. Ethan Barrett demonstrates magnificently that clay is the pinnacle of the evolutionary pyramid of animation, especially when it is set to such a light and poignant score.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ethan Barrett
Script
Ethan Barrett
Cinematographer
Ethan Barrett
Editor
Ethan Barrett
Producer
Ethan Barrett
Sound
Ethan Barrett
Score
Ethan Barrett
Animation
Ethan Barrett
Re-Visions 2020
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Buy My Film!
John Schnall
An unappreciated filmmaker wants to be part of the big industry, sell himself and be bought. A torrent of buzzwords from the beginner’s guide to self-marketing.
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Buy My Film!

Buy My Film!
John Schnall
Re-Visions 2020
Animated Film
USA
1995
3 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

A genius of independent cinema looks back on his hitherto unrecognized work. From now on he will leave this unprofitable art well alone, be part of the big business, sell himself and be bought. A brilliant future seems within reach. A torrent of buzzwords from the beginner’s guide to self-marketing. Burning ambition. Caustic sarcasm. Biting irony.

Ralph Eue

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
John Schnall
Script
John Schnall
Producer
John Schnall
Filmstill Delikado

Delikado

Delikado
Karl Malakunas
Time to Act! 2022
Documentary Film
USA,
UK,
Philippines,
China,
Australia
2022
94 minutes
English,
Filipino
Subtitles: 
English

On the island of Palawan in the Philippine archipelago, more and more rainforest is falling victim to the saws. The clearances have long been illegal but are protected and even initiated by President Duterte’s corrupt regime. Local resistance is forming. A group of courageous men around a determined human rights lawyer decide to react. They sneak into the forests to take away the logging teams’ chainsaws, cars and boats. This exciting film, constructed like a thriller, follows them on their dangerous missions, which they call “meta-legal”. But the price is high: Some of the activists pay for their resistance with their lives.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Karl Malakunas
Cinematographer
Tom Bannigan
Editor
Michael Collins, Eric Daniel Metzgar
Producer
Marty Syjuco, Michael Collins, Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala
Score
Nainita Desai
World Sales
Jenny Bohnhoff
Filmstill Divine Factory

Divine Factory

Divine Factory
Joseph Mangat
International Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Philippines,
USA,
Taiwan
2022
120 minutes
Filipino
Subtitles: 
English

When the time “when St. Joseph came” is mentioned in this film, it doesn’t refer to a religious phenomenon, but to the most popular product of TML Holy Crafts Incorporated. In the factory on the Philippines, the country with the third-largest Catholic population in the world, the employees manufacture statues of saints under exploitative conditions. Joseph Mangat portrays this place with a focus on the workers, including some from the LGBTQI community.

In the first scene, a plaster bust is uncovered layer by layer. This image could also serve to describe the approach of “Divine Factory”: From the shop to the workshop, from the entrepreneur to the simple worker, from the production to the uses made of the religious articles, this film reveals the social and economic facets of this institution. The Filipino director not only observes precisely how people work and trade there, he also involves the participants in frank conversations about love, wages and living conditions. The employees’ profit-oriented payment model reveals how economical and religious ideas interlock. The success of the company in the city of Antipolo near Manila, desirable for all, thus appears as nothing short of a divine blessing.
Jan-Philipp Kohlmann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Joseph Mangat
Cinematographer
Albert Banzon
Editor
Ilsa Malsi, Joseph Mangat
Producer
Alemberg Ang, Stefano Centini
Sound
Duu-Chih Tu
World Sales
Lya Li
Nominated for: FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Interreligious Jury
Extended Reality 2022
Filmstill Dragzina
Dragzina
Nikita Shokhov, Masha Vorslav
Where are the spaces for the LGBTQIA2S+ culture in Russia? This AR experience opens a digital safe space for the drag scene where they can perform without fear of violence.
2022
Filmstill Dragzina

Dragzina

Dragzina
Nikita Shokhov, Masha Vorslav
Extended Reality 2022
XR
USA,
Russia,
UK
2022
12 minutes
English,
Russian

The LGBTQIA2S+ community in Russia is facing an increasingly hostile social climate, is tabooed and criminalised. The AR experience opens a digital safe space for the local drag scene where they can perform without fear of violence. At the same time, this artistic occupation of heteronormatively dominated places is a political intervention.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Anna Evtiugina
Production Company
iPureland.art
AR Developer
Yuan Li
Interactive Design
Parker Ford
Artistic Design
Alexey Golubev, Vannet, Zac Kim
Creative Technologist
Zach Duer
Sound
Konstantin Andzhanovskii
Score
Ultraflex, Anoche Xenon
Performer
Masha Vorslav, Lorina Rey, Anoche Xenon, Skinny Jenny, Polis Vera/Robert, Vanessa Diziai, Ramona Vile, Vannet
Key Collaborator
Moscow gender play community "Dragzina", Moscow drag community "Home Drag Race", Ilya Lagerfeld
Director
Nikita Shokhov, Masha Vorslav
Time to Act! 2022
Filmstill Everything Wrong and Nowhere to Go
Everything Wrong and Nowhere to Go
Sindha Agha
How does the climate crisis affect our mind? How to go on in the midst of disaster? A personal essay about “climate anxiety”, guilt-rage spirals and radical self-care.
Filmstill Everything Wrong and Nowhere to Go

Everything Wrong and Nowhere to Go

Everything Wrong and Nowhere to Go
Sindha Agha
Time to Act! 2022
Documentary Film
USA,
UK
2022
12 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

Heatwaves, melting polar caps, rising sea levels, mass extinction of species. The climate crisis is threatening life on earth, and our peace of mind, too, because if you become aware of where we stand, you’ll find it hard to sleep well. Sindha Agha, too, is suffering from “climate anxiety”, the all-consuming fear of the consequences of the climate emergency, and seeks out a climate psychologist to learn how to cope with it. This cinematic portrait shows how – representative of countless others – she is torn between panic, helplessness, guilt and rage, but still finds ways to overcome the paralysis to actively tackle the climate crisis.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Sindha Agha
Cinematographer
Lauren Guiteras
Editor
Matty Neikrug
Producer
Elizabeth Woodward, Elizabeth Woodward
Sound
Jackie Zhou
Score
Daniel Fox
Filmstill Favorite Daughter

Favorite Daughter

Favorite Daughter
Dana Reilly
International Competition Short Film 2022
Documentary Film
USA
2022
20 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

Take: three generations of women in Covid lockdown in New York, enough white wine, vodka and time to talk about the really important issues. Dana Reilly makes the best of the pandemic restrictions and films what happens when her mother Janet and 90-year-old grandmother Sylvia decide to move in together. The result is a funny and at the same time lovingly raw tribute to two strong personalities, their not uncomplicated closeness and completely different worlds.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Dana Reilly
Cinematographer
Dana Reilly, Janet Isa
Editor
Keith Maitland
Producer
Dana Reilly
Sound
Dana Reilly
Score
Maya Dunietz
Camera Lucida 2023
Filmstill Feet in Water, Head on Fire
Feet in Water, Head on Fire
Terra Long
In southern California, date palms from the Middle East grow, tales from One Thousand and One Nights are told and a volcanic eruption is expected. A document of enchanting simultaneity.
Filmstill Feet in Water, Head on Fire

Feet in Water, Head on Fire

Feet in Water, Head on Fire
Terra Long
Camera Lucida 2023
Documentary Film
USA,
Canada
2023
90 minutes
Spanish,
English
Subtitles: 
English

Not a single cloud ever seems to drift across this sky, the sun never ceases to send its powerful rays down. Here, in southern California, where the San Andreas Fault has created an unmistakable topography and invisible water currents run under the barren soil, date palms thrive best: feet in water, head on fire. Terra Long has looked around, traced the history of the plants which originally came to North America from the Middle East, and visited the parades and festivities dedicated to the sugary fruit. Layer by layer, she constructs her very own perspective on the landscape and the people, translates her haptic impressions into magnificent 16mm shots and designs a complex soundtrack.

Long manages to join the past and present and produce a concise, quasi sensual extract. The laborious manual pollination of the date palms plays a role in it, as do the collapsed ecosystem of the Salton Sea, archived dresses of Arabian Nights beauty queens and interviews that testify only to what is now historical; as do elderly white couples floating in their pools and walking across the lawns of golf courses. “Feet in Water, Head on Fire” is a document of simultaneity that captivates from the first minute to the last.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Terra Long
Cinematographer
Terra Long
Editor
Kaija Siirala, Terra Long
Producer
Terra Long, Mireya Martinez, Sharlene Bamboat
Sound Design
Richy Carey
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
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Five Film Exercises – Film 1
John Whitney, James Whitney
An impact pendulum writes directly on the soundtrack of the film, producing analogue bleeps and bits. In alternating coloured light, shades change their shape.
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Five Film Exercises – Film 1

Five Film Exercises – Film 1
John Whitney, James Whitney
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Experimental Film
USA
1943
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The Whitney brothers are pioneers of abstract animation. In 1943/1944, they experimented in five film exercises with modernist form and a device of their own that wrote directly on the soundtrack of the film by means of an impact pendulum. The resulting analogue electronic bleeps and bits are accompanied by moving stencils in constantly alternating coloured backlight whose shadows change their geometrical shape.

Cornelia Friederike Müller aka CFM

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
John Whitney, James Whitney
Re-Visions 2020
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Frankly Caroline
Frank Mouris, Caroline Mouris
Frank is Caroline’s husband. The successful director wants to help her with her autobiography but of course have a say in it, too. Caroline isn’t exactly enthusiastic.
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Frankly Caroline

Frankly Caroline
Frank Mouris, Caroline Mouris
Re-Visions 2020
Animated Film
USA
1999
9 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

A couple of filmmakers – she produces, he directs – are trying hard to assemble the autobiography of the woman, Caroline. A long time ago the man, Frank, won an Oscar for the adaptation of his own life on film. Now he just wants to help Caroline a little, but of course have a say in things, too. Caroline isn’t exactly enthusiastic.

Ralph Eue

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Frank Mouris, Caroline Mouris
Script
Caroline Mouris
Cinematographer
Frank Mouris
Editor
Caroline Mouris
Producer
Caroline Mouris
Animation
Frank Mouris
Production Company
Mouris Squared
Filmstill fur

fur

fur
Zhen Li
International Competition Animated Film 2023
Animated Film
USA
2022
7 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

Biology lesson. On one side the teacher in the light of the entomology projection, on the other the classroom in semi-darkness. Attention is slackening. Adolescent daydreaming: The boy at the desk in front is actually quite cute. The fingers want to run off. Still, rather touch only oneself at first. But then there is a spark …

Having a crush, what a beautiful and intense, but equally fleeting and sobering moment. Eyes, nose, ear, mouth and hands go on their first physical explorations, breathtaking, deviant or repulsive. Zhen Li observes with microscopic precision and magnificently captures this exceptional state of mind with different animation techniques. Charcoal drawings with smeared marks, furry waves of mould, intricately animated bodies and buzzing, sticky sounds circumscribe the sensual surge.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Zhen Li
Script
Zhen Li
Producer
Zhen Li
Sound Design
Zhen Li
Score
Marc Riordan
Animation
Zhen Li
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award, Gedanken Aufschluss Prize