Film Archive

Filmstill A Crab in the Pool

A Crab in the Pool

Un trou dans la poitrine
Alexandra Myotte, Jean-Sébastien Hamel
International Competition Animated Film 2023
Animated Film
Canada
2023
11 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
English

The teenager Zoe and her little brother Theo spend a day at the public swimming pool. Theo loses himself in his childish fantasies. The visitors of the pool look like characters from Greek mythology to him. Zoe, less than pleased at having to watch her little brother, hides in the changing room. She has problems of her own because she is struggling with the changes in her youthful body. She looks at her breasts in the mirror, which the tight bathing suit does nothing to disguise. The horror that this change provokes in her manifests in a terrible panic attack.

Theo’s flight to the realm of mythical creatures and Zoe’s anxiety attack are both caused by a shared traumatic experience. The two find a way to overcome past experiences – even without their mother’s support. Ingenious transitions, cleverly constructed details and, not least, great empathy for the siblings’ communicating inner and outer worlds make this film a convincing double portrait.

Franka Sachse

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Alexandra Myotte, Jean-Sébastien Hamel
Script
Alexandra Myotte, Jean-Sébastien Hamel
Editor
Jean-Sébastien Hamel
Producer
Jean-Sébastien Hamel, Alexandra Myotte
Sound
François Lacasse
Animation
Alexandra Myotte
World Sales
Pierre Brouillette-Hamelin
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
Filmstill Families’ Albums

Families’ Albums

Albums de familles
Moïa Jobin-Paré
International Competition Animated Film 2023
Animated Film
Canada
2023
8 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Images of blurred landscapes fade into each other. Apparent rock formations reveal themselves only at second glance as collages of human body parts. Browsing further through the family album uncovers something that is rather rarely found in such private pictorial chronicles: the backs of people’s heads. Grandparents, aunts and friends do not, as usual, look out of the album and the then at the viewer in the now but into the mysterious depths of a neon-lighted corridor. Its architectural elements form a filmic labyrinth behind whose closed doors animated collages of arms and hands perform everyday gestures in a ghost-like pantomime.

Moïa Jobin-Paré opens found private photo albums. The connections and stories between the pictures remain as abstract as that which the photographs show is concrete. Poetic spaces of interpretation open up. The Canadian artist offers a special reading. She scrapes individual elements or patterns off the analogue photographs and animates these “painterly” edits in a space of washed-out sounds. Scratches and white dots spread mushroom-like on the physically dissolving images.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Moïa Jobin-Paré
Script
Moïa Jobin-Paré
Cinematographer
Moïa Jobin-Paré
Editor
Moïa Jobin-Paré
Producer
Moïa Jobin-Paré
Sound
Moïa Jobin-Paré
Sound Design
Moïa Jobin-Paré
Animation
Moïa Jobin-Paré
World Sales
Serge Abiaad
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
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
Filmstill Gambling, Gods and LSD

Gambling, Gods and LSD

Gambling, Gods and LSD
Peter Mettler
Hommage Peter Mettler 2023
Documentary Film
Switzerland,
Canada
2002
180 minutes
English,
Swiss German,
Hindi
Subtitles: 
English

The motif of movement in film is a core element of Peter Mettler’s award-winning body of work: His journey here takes us from Canada via the USA to Switzerland and as far as India, the filmed moments associatively unfolding a tableau about different people. They are all, each in their own way, looking for transcendence and ecstasy. In this hypnotic trip about time and transience, the director is always ready to engage with the unexpected. His attitude is marked by curiosity and impartiality. Well over a hundred hours of footage feed into a brilliant montage in which transition and rapture also find visual and acoustic correspondences.

Annina Wettstein

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Peter Mettler
Script
Peter Mettler
Cinematographer
Peter Mettler
Editor
Roland Schlimme, Peter Mettler
Producer
Cornelia Seitler, Alexandra Gill, Ingrid Veninger
Sound Design
Peter Bräker, Peter Mettler
Score
Fred Frith
German Distributor
GMfilms
Filmstill Kathy and Teresa

Kathy and Teresa

Kathy and Teresa
Marie Zrenner
German Competition Documentary Film 2023
Documentary Film
Germany,
Canada
2023
14 minutes
English,
Inuktitut
Subtitles: 
German, English

Two young girls are drifting in the water of a public swimming pool. The film adopts this drifting attitude as it follows them through nocturnal Montreal and their daily life. Sometimes the two speak English, sometimes Inuktitut. Kathy and Teresa come from a small Inuit settlement in northern Canada. They show each other smartphone pictures of seals and bears they killed themselves. They read about the special relationship between the Inuit and their sledge dogs, which has lost its importance today. Home assignments are done in a park – the scent of the trees reminds them a little of home. They close their eyes. With great tenderness, the camera captures the deep bond between the two best friends who share the same heritage and language. Kathy has written a moving song in Inuktitut. In simple, clear words, she sings of the feelings and yearnings of a young Indigenous woman.

Anke Leweke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Marie Zrenner
Script
Marie Zrenner, Kathy Snowball
Cinematographer
Youssef Nassar
Editor
Ulrike Tortora
Producer
Sabrina Kleder
Co-Producer
Caroline Bergoin
Sound
Teresa Annanack, Sabrina Kleder, Youssef Nassar
Sound Design
Cornelia Böhm
Score
Kathy Snowball
German Distributor
Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München
Beyond Animation 2023
Filmstill Ouverture
Ouverture
Christopher Becks
Inside a barn the camera catches daylight filtering through the gaps in the crooked walls. The flashing rays seem like the heartbeat of this fragile building.
Filmstill Ouverture

Ouverture

Ouverture
Christopher Becks
Beyond Animation 2023
Animated Film
Canada
2012
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Inside a barn the camera catches the daylight filtering into the fragile building through the irregular gaps and crevices in its wooden skin. It chases them with whip pans or ambushes the slowly creeping sunlight with time-lapse shots. The flashing, blazing rays seem like the heartbeat of this chamber of light. There is no outside view.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Christopher Becks
Hommage Peter Mettler 2023
Filmstill Picture of Light
Picture of Light
Peter Mettler
The film crew sets out to look for the northern lights. Equipped with an ingenious special camera, they surrender themselves to waiting, the conditions and the people they meet.
Filmstill Picture of Light

Picture of Light

Picture of Light
Peter Mettler
Hommage Peter Mettler 2023
Documentary Film
Canada
1994
87 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
German

Peter Mettler sets out to look for northern lights with photographer Andreas Züst and a small film crew. In order to be able to capture this miracle of nature on film in the first place, the team has built a special camera that has to withstand the extreme climate conditions. On location, they patiently surrender to the state of waiting. They are in the border region between the geographical north and the populated south. The formal structure of the film, on the other hand, shifts between trance-like essay and analytical research trip. And the filmmaker is left with the fundamental question of whether the experience of this spectacular natural phenomenon can be filmed at all.

Annina Wettstein

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Peter Mettler
Script
Peter Mettler
Cinematographer
Peter Mettler
Editor
Peter Mettler, Mike Munn
Producer
Andreas Züst, Peter Mettler, A. Gill
Sound Design
Peter Mettler, Peter Bräker, A. Gill, Leon Johnson, Gaston Kyriazi
Extended Reality 2023
Filmstill Plastisapiens
Plastisapiens
Miri Chekhanovich, Édith Jorisch
In this “surreal eco-fiction” we merge with plastic to become hybrid creatures whose identity and DNA were restructured. We become the material that unites us all.
Filmstill Plastisapiens

Plastisapiens

Plastisapiens
Miri Chekhanovich, Édith Jorisch
Extended Reality 2023
XR
Canada,
Israel
2022
15 minutes
English

Microplastics are everywhere: in the air, the soil, and the water. In this “surreal eco-fiction,” plastic and the environment live in peaceful coexistence. They invent a comforting world in which we merge with plastics to become hybrid creatures, endowed with a new identity and DNA. In the plastisphere we become the material that unites us all – if only it were finally allowed to re-shape us.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Isabelle Repelin, Raphaëlle Sleurs, Marie-Pier Gauthier
Executive Producer
Louis-Richard Tremblay
Production Company
Dpt., National Film Board of Canada, Lalibela Productions
Artistic Design
Dpt.
Sound Design
Ori Alboher
Script
Miri Chekhanovich, Édith Jorisch
Narrator
Miri Chekhanovich
Director
Miri Chekhanovich, Édith Jorisch
Beyond Animation 2023
Filmstill The Formation of Clouds
The Formation of Clouds
Marie-Hélène Turcotte
A girl looks out cautiously but curiously for the first harbingers of growing up. Beside the protected family home there now is a new emotional space to explore.
Filmstill The Formation of Clouds

The Formation of Clouds

La formation des nuages
Marie-Hélène Turcotte
Beyond Animation 2023
Animated Film
Canada
2010
10 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

To enter the land behind the mirrors like Alice … A girl looks behind the mirror of her childhood for the first time, looking out cautiously, but also curiously, for the first harbingers of growing up. She steals away, detaching herself from her parents and siblings. Beside the small, protected family home, there now is a new, vast emotional space to explore.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Marie-Hélène Turcotte
Script
Marie-Hélène Turcotte
Editor
Alain Baril, Richard Comeau
Producer
Marc Bertrand
Sound Design
Olivier Calvert
Score
Nicolas Bernier
Animation
Marie-Hélène Turcotte
Extended Reality 2023
Filmstill This Is Not a Ceremony
This Is Not a Ceremony
Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon)
Two Indigenous men reveal disturbing physical experiences with racism in North America. Their reports break taboos, their appeal is crystal clear: Carry this knowledge out into the world!
2022
Filmstill This Is Not a Ceremony

This Is Not a Ceremony

This Is Not a Ceremony
Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon)
Extended Reality 2023
XR
Canada
2022
21 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

Authentic and symbolic descendants of the Canadian Indigenous community lead us to a place where past and present intertwine. Two Indigenous men reveal their disturbing physical experiences with systemic racism. Their reports break taboos. And they implore us to carry the knowledge, grief and anger into the world like raging buffalos! Join up!

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Dana Dansereau
Production Company
National Film Board of Canada
Editor
Jessica Dymond
Artistic Design
James Monkman
VFX Artist
James Monkman
Sound Design
Nagamo Publishing
Script
Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon)
Score
Nagamo Publishing
Key Collaborator
Olivier Leroux
Director
Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon)
Filmstill When Adam Changes

When Adam Changes

Adam change lentement
Joël Vaudreuil
International Competition Animated Film 2023
Animated Film
Canada
2023
94 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
English

Adam is 15, bullied by his schoolmates and ignored by the girl of his dreams. His grandmother, who has teased him all his life with nasty remarks about his appearance, uses her dying breath to bring home to him once more his supposed physical shortcomings. Even the prospect of the upcoming summer holidays hardly raises Adam’s spirits, because his father has organised several unpleasant holiday jobs for him to build his character. On top of everything else, the teasing and negative comments manifest in Adam in strange deformations of his body which provoke additional stress and ridicule.

Adam is different. He stays outside while the people around him go about their usual – their “normal” – activities. He watches his sister being cheated on by her boyfriend, must bear a neighbour’s fanatical lawn care accuracy and discovers that a resident of his street throws bags of dog faeces up into the branches of the alley trees. The more the daily madness around him becomes evident, the more Adam emerges as an empathetic and mature young adult. Contrary to all claims he, whom the others regard as a strange eccentric, is in control of his life.

Franka Sachse

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Joël Vaudreuil
Script
Joël Vaudreuil
Editor
Joël Vaudreuil
Producer
David Pierrat, Olivier Picard
Sound
Olivier Calvert
Sound Design
Olivier Calvert
Score
Joël Vaudreuil
Animation
Nicolas Moussette, Hrsito Karastoyanov
Filmstill While the Green Grass Grows

While the Green Grass Grows

While the Green Grass Grows
Peter Mettler
Hommage Peter Mettler 2023
Documentary Film
Canada,
Switzerland
2023
166 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
German

A film that teaches us mindfulness. In his audiovisual diary, award-winning Swiss-Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler says farewell to his mother and father. But the film transcends his personal work of mourning. In an always dialogue-oriented search movement over the cycle of life, he reflects on this world and the next, on existence and time. It is an eternal circuit and flow – like the continuous passing of clouds and rivers.

Visually as well as intellectually, Peter Mettler draws upon personal conversations, philosophical and spiritual texts as well as his own film and sound archive. His approach is characterised by openness and humility towards life and nature. This attentive attitude characterises the director’s notion of “film-making” per se that has shaped all his works. “While the Green Grass Grows” comprises two parts of a larger epic diary project with the same title.

Annina Wettstein

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Peter Mettler
Script
Peter Mettler
Cinematographer
Peter Mettler
Editor
Jordan Kawai, Peter Mettler
Producer
Cornelia Seitler, Peter Mettler, Brigitte Hofer
Sound
Peter Mettler
Sound Design
Jordan Kawai
Winner of: Golden Dove Feature-Length Film (International Competition Documentary Film)