Film Archive

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The Crossing

Die Odyssee
Florence Miailhe
Competition for the Audience Award 2021
Animated Film
Czech Republic,
France,
Germany
2020
84 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

A country that could be anywhere, not precisely localized and yet everywhere. It’s a beautiful summer’s day when the life of siblings Kyona and Adriel changes forever. Their village is raided, destroyed and set on fire. The whole family is forced to flee and experiences many real and surreal situations on their tracks across a whole continent to finally arrive, perhaps, at a more peaceful place.

At the start of the film, Kyona leafs through a sketchbook, takes stock of her life and talks about the end of her childhood. It is only later that the siblings even realize that they are refugees, that like many others they are making their way to the border for a variety of reasons: natural disasters, the consequences of climate change, war, persecution. The two children come across dangerous and helpful people, are separated and find each other again. This feature-length animation, realized in oil on glass, relies on the rapid interplay between fantasy and reality, taking us, on the one hand, into a fictitious, non-real world. But on the other hand, the places, names, situations remind us of familiar things. They show fleeing, exile, setting out as a universal experience.
Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Florence Miailhe
Script
Florence Miailhe, Marie Desplechin
Editor
Nassim Gordji Tehrani, Julie Dupré
Producer
Dora Benoussilio
Co-Producer
Luc Camilli, Ralf Kukula, Martin Vandas, Alena Vandasoá
Sound
Florian Marquardt
Score
Andreas Moisa, Philipp Kümpel
Animation
Marta Szymańska, Zuzana Studená, Anna Paděrová, Eva Skurská, Polina Kazak, Lucie Sunková, Urte Zintler, Paola de Sousa, Ewa Łuczków, Anita Brüvere, Aurore Peuffier, David Martin, Marie Juin, Valentine Delqueux, Aline Helmcke
Winner of: Gedanken Aufschluss Prize
Animation Perspectives 2022
Filmstill Oasis
Oasis
Veneta Androva
A tour of a computer-generated desert landscape and a story of failure: The first casino in Palestine opened in 1998, only to close down again very soon.
Filmstill Oasis

Oasis

Oasis
Veneta Androva
Animation Perspectives 2022
Animated Film
Germany
2018
15 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

A virtual tour of a computer-generated desert landscape and a story of failure: In 1998, the “Oasis”, Palestine’s first casino, opened. The peace-making idea associated with this development project lost out against political reality. Game over – the oasis becomes a multifaceted fata morgana of interviews with employees, operators and guests.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Veneta Androva
Script
Veneta Androva
Cinematographer
Veneta Androva
Editor
Veneta Androva
Producer
Veneta Androva
Sound
Veneta Androva
Score
Haydeé Jiménez
Animation
Veneta Androva
Kids DOK 2022
Filmstill Oasis
Oasis
Justine Martin
Raphaël and Rémi are twins who spend their holidays by the lake. But this is a time of farewell, because Raphaël will soon transfer to a school for children with disabilities.
Filmstill Oasis

Oasis

Oasis
Justine Martin
Kids DOK 2022
Documentary Film
Canada
2022
14 minutes
French

Raphaël and Rémi are twins and very close. They spend their time in the skate park and their holidays by the lake. There’s always something to do: boating, catching frogs, bathing in the rain. This could go on forever. But we slowly realise that these holidays are also a farewell, because Raphaël will soon transfer to a school for children with disabilities.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Justine Martin
Cinematographer
Myriam Payette
Editor
Félix Bouffard-Dumas
Producer
Louis-Emmanuel Gagné-Brochu
Sound
Christophe Voyer
Score
Louis-Joseph Cliche
World Sales
Pierre Brouillette-Hamelin
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Odoriko

Odoriko
Yoichiro Okutani
Editing Makes the Film 2021
Documentary Film
Japan,
USA,
France
2020
114 minutes
Japanese
Subtitles: 
English

A background study of a dying amusement culture, filmed in slovenly dressing rooms in front of badly polished make-up mirrors. – Director Yoichiro Okutani follows the Odoriko, the Japanese strippers, through their daily routine between dressing and undressing, between pragmatic approaches to life and eroticism made fit for the stage. Okutani’s cut begins naked: A nude woman descends a staircase, filmed not to advantage but with the brutal ordinariness of routine. One production year and five minutes lie between this – Okutani’s – director’s cut and Mary Stephen’s editor’s cut “Nude at Heart”. But how much more?

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Yoichiro Okutani
Script
Yoichiro Okutani
Cinematographer
Yoichiro Okutani
Editor
Yoichiro Okutani, Keiko Okawa
Producer
Asako Fujioka, Eric Nyari, Yoichiro Okutani, Annie Ohayon-Dekel
Sound
Young-chang Hwang
Beyond Animation 2023
Filmstill Olgastraße 18
Olgastraße 18
Jörg Rambaum, Liv Scharbatke
A camera roams through an apartment and a life. Family sounds, radio voices and the animated interior present a home where nobody is at home any more.
Filmstill Olgastraße 18

Olgastraße 18

Olgastraße 18
Jörg Rambaum, Liv Scharbatke
Beyond Animation 2023
Animated Film
Germany
2011
4 minutes
without dialogue

A camera roams incessantly through an apartment and a life without any particular hallmarks. Sound and animated interventions portray family bliss and unhappiness, quarrels and separation, age and death. Radio news open the window a little to what is going on in the world outside. The constantly changing interiors tell of people who were at home here without ever showing them.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Jörg Rambaum, Liv Scharbatke
Script
Jörg Rambaum, Liv Scharbatke
Cinematographer
Jörg Rambaum
Sound Design
Jasmin Reuter
Score
Jasmin Reuter
Filmstill On Taphonomy

On Taphonomy

On Taphonomy
Ana María Gómez López
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2022
Documentary Film
Netherlands
2021
9 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

A life dedicated to decay. Johannes Weigelt (1890–1948) was a palaeontologist, a dilettante photographer, a Nazi, all of it fervent. This essay is dedicated to the pioneer of taphonomy – sober and at the same time exciting in form. Three image fields are filled with changing content: black and white documents of fields of animal carcasses, a snapshot with Göring, text panels, artful photomontages. They all charge one another, containing a vibrantly shimmering biography fossilised in images.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ana María Gómez López
Cinematographer
Ana María Gómez López
Editor
Sasha Donkan
Producer
Ana María Gómez López
Sound
Mayvand Kasem Dad
Kids DOK 2021
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On the Hill
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
The little robot lives in the forest. One night, a star falls from the sky, to his great joy. Because the star fades more and more, it must be put back. But how?
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On the Hill

On the Hill
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
Kids DOK 2021
Animated Film
Slovakia
2020
9 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The little robot lives alone in a house on the hill in the forest. One night, kaboom, a star falls from the sky. The little robot likes the star and decides to keep it. But he realizes that something is now missing from the sky and the star on earth fades more and more. It must be put back! But that’s easier said than done.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
Script
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
Cinematographer
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
Editor
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
Producer
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar, Erika Paulinská
Sound
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
Animation
Lukáš Ďurica, Juraj Mäsiar
Extended Reality 2022
Filmstill On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)
On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)
Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Pierre Zandrowicz, Arnaud Colinart
The nuclear threat became real for 1.4 million people on Hawaii. On 13 January 2018, a text message warned them of a missile. The message was false, its consequences momentous.
2022
Filmstill On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)

On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)

On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)
Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Pierre Zandrowicz, Arnaud Colinart
Extended Reality 2022
XR
France,
UK,
USA
2022
42 minutes
English,
French,
German,
Korean,
Japanese,
Norwegian
Subtitles: 
English

The peace of the superpowers is based on “mutual assured destruction”. States can annihilate each other completely with their arsenals. On 13 January 2018, 1.4 million people on Hawaii got a taste of this: A false missile alert text message brought their lives to a standstill that lasted 38 minutes, panic broke out and the nuclear threat suddenly became real.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Arnaud Colinart, Jo-Jo Ellison, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison
Executive Producer
Paul Mezier, Susanna Pollack
Production Company
Atlas V, Archer’s Mark
Animation
Alan Sorio
3D Artist
Renaud de Bellefon, Anthony Rubier
VFX Artist
Yasuyuki Otsuki
Script
Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio
Score
Bobby Krlic
Key Collaborator
Games for Change, Princeton University, British Film Institute, VR for Good, ARTE France, CNC
Director
Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Pierre Zandrowicz, Arnaud Colinart
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Once I Entered a Garden

Pa’am nikhnasti legan
Avi Mograbi
Homage Avi Mograbi 2021
Documentary Film
Israel,
Switzerland,
France
2012
99 minutes
Arabic,
Hebrew
Subtitles: 
English

Avi Mograbi met his grandfather in a dream. The setting: Damascus, 1920. Would the two have spoken Arabic or Hebrew at this impossible encounter? It’s amazing that they were able to communicate at all! For Mograbi barely speaks Arabic, and his grandfather only learned Ivrit later. Another impossible conversation begins in his friend Ali Al-Azhari’s flat: between Avi, the Jew, and Ali, the Palestinian. Their lively, affectionate exchange about ancestors, vocabularies and dreams is supposed to prepare for a film that ends up not being made. But since the footage has already been shot, why not use it to tackle a new Israeli-Palestine reality?

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Avi Mograbi
Script
Avi Mograbi, Noam Enbar
Cinematographer
Phillipe Bellaïche
Editor
Avi Mograbi, Rainer M. Trinkler
Producer
Serge Lalou, Samir
Co-Producer
Avi Mograbi
Sound
Florian Eidenbenz
Score
Noam Enbar
International Competition 2022
Filmstill One Mother
One Mother
Mickaël Bandela
An autobiographical and visually ingenious study of growing up (unprivileged), which raises questions about the (un-)interchangeability: of every individual, even a mother.
Filmstill One Mother

One Mother

Une mère
Mickaël Bandela
International Competition 2022
Documentary Film
France
2022
86 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
English

When director Mickaël Bandela was six months old, his biological mother Gisèle, who lived in France, handed him over to his foster mother Marie-Thérèse, who cared for him for almost twenty years. Though he stayed in touch with Gisèle, visits were always irregular. Now Mickaël is 35 and about to found his own family. It could be the perfect moment to include Gisèle into his life as a grandmother. But she decides to return to her old Congolese home.

Mickaël tries to understand – the woman who gave birth to him, the woman he grew up with and himself. His autobiographical film turns into a fragmented search for the traces of memories of his own becoming. Some sequences show moments of extreme disorientation. A loss of balance while revolving around oneself, as one might assume? No, that’s precisely what does not happen to Mickaël Bandela. His work, which counteracts the lack of archive material with visual ingenuity and an idiosyncratic rhythm, is full of empathy. Not only does he shine a light on growing up unprivileged in the French province, he also allows us to understand the actions of both his “mamans” and reveals backgrounds. In addition, he achieves an elaborate analysis of (un)interchangeability: that of every individual, even the often sacrosanct-seeming figure of the mother.
Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Mickaël Bandela
Cinematographer
Mickaël Bandela
Editor
Mickaël Bandela
Producer
Marina Perales Marhuenda, Xavier Rocher, Mickaël Bandela
Sound
Mickaël Bandela
Score
Thomas Schwab
Winner of: FIPRESCI Prize
Competition for the Audience Award 2022
Filmstill One Road to Quartzsite
One Road to Quartzsite
Ryan Maxey
Quartzsite, Arizona. A small town in the middle of the desert becomes a huge camping ground in winter, where a motley community live the other side of the “American Dream”.
Filmstill One Road to Quartzsite

One Road to Quartzsite

One Road to Quartzsite
Ryan Maxey
Competition for the Audience Award 2022
Documentary Film
USA
2022
89 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

Quartzsite, Arizona. A town in the middle of the desert which regularly turns into a huge camping ground where up to a million people from the northern US states escape winter. It’s less chilly here, and people of every kind are welcome to rent a plot of dry land for 180 dollars. Ryan Maxey joins them for three seasons in a row, approaching the motley community with an intimate and at the same time soberly observant eye.

Meth junkies, gun lovers, constitution keepers, a trans woman dressed in pink and breeding cuddly pets and white men wearing “Black Guns Matter” t-shirts. People trade everything and help each other. Sometimes it can get rough. But the US-American flag, the ever-present guns and collective prayer are part of life, just like the democratic choice between pancakes and hamburgers. Maxey’s documentary foray takes him through all these lives and lifestyles which he seems to register sometimes with affectionate tenderness, sometimes shaking his head. Despite his critical semi-distance, he is clearly a part of the community he portrays. His film, a collaborative work in some ways, combines shots of this place from different perspectives and different times. Ambivalences persist, which is why all judgement must be preliminary.
Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ryan Maxey
Cinematographer
Ryan Maxey
Editor
Ryan Maxey
Producer
Josh Polon, Ryan Maxey
Sound
William Tabaneau
Score
Ilan Rubin
World Sales
Noah Lang
Soul-Things 2022
Filmstill Oneohtrix Point Never: Animals
Oneohtrix Point Never: Animals
Rick Alverson
Disconcerting video editing makes Val Kilmer’s dozing body twitch. A troubled soul and restless memories rise to the surface.
Filmstill Oneohtrix Point Never: Animals

Oneohtrix Point Never: Animals

Oneohtrix Point Never: Animals
Rick Alverson
Soul-Things 2022
Experimental Film
UK
2016
4 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

A ghostly voice sings about transience while the camera glides past closed curtains, capturing the expressive, lived-in face of a dozing Val Kilmer. Rick Alverson’s disconcerting stroboscopic video editing makes the dozing body twitch. The inner turmoil of a troubled soul and restless memories rise to the surface.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Rick Alverson
Script
Daniel Lopatin, Rick Alverson
Cinematographer
Drew Bienemann
Editor
Rick Alverson
Producer
Ryan Zacarias
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Only the Earth and the Mountains

Only the Earth and the Mountains
Elleni Sclavenitis
International Competition Short Film 2021
Documentary Film
USA
2020
29 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

The Sand Creek Massacre on 29 November 1864: More than 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho were murdered by the U.S. Cavalry. Ignorant hand-downs from the past and the omnipresence of statues glorifying murderers are juxtaposed with an empty museum of indigenous history for which there is no funding. This film against forgetting by a white female director also examines its own position: she talks frankly with descendants of the survivors – many of whom are choosing a scientific approach to history.

Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Elleni Sclavenitis
Script
Elleni Sclavenitis
Cinematographer
Elleni Sclavenitis
Editor
Elleni Sclavenitis
Producer
Elleni Sclavenitis
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Open One’s Mouth

Kuchi wo hiraku
Akane Murata
International Competition Short Film 2021
Animated Film
Japan
2021
4 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Paper and colour pigments lead a life of their own. The material awakens and begins to talk, opening its mouth. The colours speak to each other, their substances add up to form a multi-layered tale about the strains of dialogue and interaction. The texture of the hand-painted individual frames is closely interwoven with a sonic tapestry of human sounds and minimalist electronic resonances.

Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Akane Murata
Producer
Kei Oyama
Sound
Naoaki Nishimura
German Competition Short Film 2020
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Operation Moonbird
Dustin Lose
A gloomy filmic contribution to sea rescue and a concentrated revelation of the mechanisms of systematic flight prevention in the Mediterranean and the people responsible for it.
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Operation Moonbird

Operation Moonbird
Dustin Lose
German Competition Short Film 2020
Documentary Film
Germany
2020
22 minutes
English,
German
Subtitles: 
English, German

A person swims for their life in the open sea. A European merchant vessel starts its engines and sails away from them. The pilot of a civilian aerial reconnaissance plane admonishes the captain and appeals to his conscience. The Libyan coast guard and the swimming person reach the decks of the European merchant vessel at the same time. Outcome unknown. The world turns in circles. This is not a film about the alleged refugee problem but one about the problem called Europe.

Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Dustin Lose
Script
Dustin Lose
Cinematographer
Dustin Lose
Editor
Dustin Lose
Producer
Dustin Lose
Sound
Mladjan Matavulj
Winner of: Young Eyes Film Award
Slowenian Animation 2022
Filmstill Orange Is the New Black – Unraveled
Orange Is the New Black – Unraveled
Špela Čadež
A commissioned work: Špela Čadež’s summary of the legendary comedy drama show set in a women’s prison, “unravelled” in soft and scratchy wool, yellow as urine and red as blood.
Filmstill Orange Is the New Black – Unraveled

Orange Is the New Black – Unraveled

Orange Is the New Black – Unraveled
Špela Čadež
Slowenian Animation 2022
Animated Film
USA
2017
4 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

To promote the start of season five, Špela Čadež summarises the first four seasons of the legendary US comedy drama show for Netflix. From the streaming provider’s logo to the canteen food through to vomit – Čadež “unravels” her condensed version of the stories from the women’s prison in soft and scratchy wool, yellow as urine and red as blood.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Špela Čadež
Cinematographer
Mitja Ličen
Editor
Matic Drakulić
Producer
Tina Smrekar
Sound
Julij Zornik
Score
Drago Ivanuša
Animation
Zarja Menart, Leon Vidmar, Lea Vučko