Film Archive

International Competition 2021
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A Custom of the Sea
Fabrizio Polpettini
Three friends explore the radiance of the Mediterranean, which connects Christian and Islamic countries and has always been and still is a site of conflicts.
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A Custom of the Sea

Un usage de la mer
Fabrizio Polpettini
International Competition 2021
Documentary Film
France
2021
52 minutes
Arabic,
English,
French,
Italian
Subtitles: 
English, German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing

Porto Maurizio, where the director, who lives in France today, grew up, is located on the Ligurian coast. The village is the starting point for a cinematic journey into the past that spans a surprisingly wide arc to a time when Muslim pirates, the corsairs, haunted the Mediterranean and took Europeans as slaves. To this end, the film light-handedly draws from the rich fund of film history and its iconography.

Adventure films from the 1940s and historical murals depict the naval battles of the early 19th century in powerful images. The director ingeniously combines such visual finds with analogue new recordings of a journey with two friends. Their seemingly loosely told anecdotes and chance encounters combine to form a coherent whole, forming a geopolitical system of coordinates around the Mediterranean that deals with eurocentrism, colonial history and religiously motivated conflicts between Christian and Islamic countries. The subjects couldn’t be more topical.
Annina Wettstein

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Fabrizio Polpettini
Cinematographer
Valentina Provini
Editor
Marylou Vergès
Producer
Fabrizio Polpettini
Co-Producer
Pierre-André Belin
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A Night of Knowing Nothing

A Night of Knowing Nothing
Payal Kapadia
Camera Lucida – Out of Competition 2021
Documentary Film
France,
India
2021
96 minutes
Hindi,
Bengali
Subtitles: 
English

Riots and protests at an Indian film school, told in letters written by student L to her lover K, in which she reflects on what’s happening around her. While government forces gradually push back the rebellion, L realizes that she will never receive an answer because K belongs to a higher caste. The anonymous lines are wistful echoes of a love tragedy in times of the resurgence of a nationalistic class society.

Director Payal Kapadia steeps the visual material, compiled from a variety of sources and testifying to long, draining nights of protest, but also to great determination and a youthful exuberance, almost consistently in grainy black and white. Even mobile phone or surveillance camera footage are thus aesthetically related to 16mm student films from past decades. But against this contrast the immediate, unfinished nature of what is shown becomes all the more apparent, referencing the complex dialogue between a fragile memory and a tumultuous present that goes on in the film. A present in which questions of artistic representation, but also of personal responsibility, must be renegotiated.
Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Payal Kapadia
Script
Payal Kapadia, Himanshu Prajapati
Cinematographer
Ranabir Das
Editor
Ranabir Das
Producer
Thomas Hakim, Julien Graff, Ranabir Das
Sound
Moinak Bose, Romain Ozanne
World Sales
Wouter Jansen
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A Solar Dream

Un rêve solaire
Patrick Bokanowski
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Animated Film
France
2016
63 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
English

Patrick Bokanowski subjects his own early cine film footage to a magical optical transformation. In the glistening drizzle of electronic sounds and the deep rumbling of drone waves by Michèle Bokanowski, light eruptions, sweeping colours and shadowy apparitions unfold while the original footage shines through. A diary of awake dreaming observation.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Patrick Bokanowski
Script
Patrick Bokanowski
Cinematographer
Patrick Bokanowski
Editor
Patrick Bokanowski
Producer
Patrick Bokanowski
Score
Michèle Bokanowski
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Abyssal

Abisal
Alejandro Alonso
International Competition Short Film 2021
Documentary Film
Cuba,
France
2021
30 minutes
Spanish
Subtitles: 
French, English

A ship scrapyard in western Cuba. The observing camera follows Raudel and his colleagues who work in what seems like a hermetically sealed microcosm. A homing pigeon strays into the place; the workers contemplate it silently as they smoke. Sometimes they talk about their dreams. Shots are focussed in turns on their bodies and their surroundings. Rhythmic, artfully crafted and authentically produced sounds accompany precise and lucid images, without aestheticizing the harshness of their work.

Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Alejandro Alonso
Script
Lisandra López Fabé, Alejandro Alonso
Cinematographer
Alejandro Alonso
Editor
Emmanuel Peña
Producer
Boris Prieto, Alejandro Alonso, Oderay Ponce de León
Sound
Glenda Martínez Cabrera, Velia Díaz de Villalvilla, Alejandro Pérez
Score
Pepe Gavilondo
World Sales
Boris Prieto
Funder
Norwegian Fund for Cuban Cinema, CNC / Aide aux cinémas du monde
Winner of: Golden Dove Short Documentary (International Competition Short Film)
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Anxious Body

Fuan na karada
Yoriko Mizushiri
International Competition Short Film 2021
Animated Film
France,
Japan
2021
6 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

Tszzzzidd – skin and adhesive tape separate slowly, almost lasciviously. From a sober physical point of view, forces between molecular bonds are being overcome. Yoriko Mizushiri composes brief, highly sensual variations on pain and pleasure based on this phenomenon. Restrained, calm and scalpel-sharp, she creates two-dimensional drawn animations in subdued colours, accompanied by cool electronic sounds that explode in one’s head only to scatter into the anxious but curious body.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Yoriko Mizushiri
Producer
Emmanuel-Alain Raynal, Pierre Baussaron, Nobuaki Doi / New Deer
World Sales
Luce Grosjean
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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
Animation Perspectives 2021
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Ceuta’s Gate
Randa Maroufi
A performative reconstruction sketches and condenses daily life at the border between the Spanish exclave of Ceuta and Morocco, which is crossed illegally by all kinds of goods.
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Ceuta’s Gate

Bab Septa
Randa Maroufi
Animation Perspectives 2021
Documentary Film
France,
Morocco
2019
19 minutes
Spanish,
Arabic
Subtitles: 
English

Everything seems neat at first in Randa Maroufi’s performative reconstruction. Cars form orderly queues; market women tie up their baggage. On the monotonous grey background, the scenes appear schematic, like a blueprint where suddenly everything becomes graphically condensed. Everyday life at the border between the Spanish exclave of Ceuta and Morocco, which is crossed illegally by all kinds of goods.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Randa Maroufi
Script
Randa Maroufi
Cinematographer
Luca Coassin
Editor
Randa Maroufi, Ismael Joffroy Chandoutis
Producer
Saïd Hamich
Sound
Mohamed Bounouar, Léonore Mercier
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Conversations with Siro

Conversations avec Siro
Dima El-Horr
International Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Lebanon,
France
2021
52 minutes
Arabic,
French
Subtitles: 
French, English

Lebanese filmmaker Dima El-Horr moved to Paris several years ago. Among the friends who stayed at home is the artist Sirvat Fazlian, whom she regularly visits in Beirut until the failed revolution of 2019, the COVID lockdown, the devastating port explosion and finally the dramatic economic crisis put a temporary end to their meetings. So the director decides to give her conversations with Siro a cinematic form.

Ever since the death of her husband, the well-known Armenian actor Berj Fazlian, Siro has lived alone in a flat filled with souvenirs and devoted most of her time to music and painting. In this film, footage from the years before 2019 blends with recorded phone calls between Siro and Dima and recent scenes from Paris, coming together in a densely woven portrait of life in exile. While snow falls in Paris, Siro talks about warm days on the Mediterranean coast and sings Armenian songs. She rails against the permanent crisis in Lebanon, but her nature is not affected. For one thing, Siro personifies the legendary Lebanese resilience. Yet for the filmmaker she represents that part of the heart that people in exile leave behind. So almost inevitably, “Conversations with Siro” becomes the director’s dialogue with herself.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Dima El-Horr
Cinematographer
Dima El-Horr
Editor
Catherine Zins
Producer
Paul Rognoni, Sabine Sidawi
Sound
Jean-Pierre Dussardier
Nominated for: FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Interreligious Jury
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
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Court-circuit n° 180 – Interview with Michèle Bokanowski
Lorenzo Recio
Michèle Bokanowski’s sounds have been a distinct part of Patrick Bokanowski’s film images since 1972. Between tape loops she talks about her work with material that’s often quite unlike music.
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Court-circuit n° 180 – Interview with Michèle Bokanowski

Court-circuit n° 180 – Interview de Michèle Bokanowski
Lorenzo Recio
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Documentary Film
France
2004
10 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
English

Michèle Bokanowski’s sounds have been a distinct part of Patrick Bokanowski’s film images since 1972. The origin of her soundtracks often lies in noises that are quite unlike music. Thus, she uses the clacking of billiard balls to describe people working on a field in the distance. Between tape loops and electronic devices, the composer talks about her craft of shaping sonorous material.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Lorenzo Recio
Producer
ARTE France, MK2TV
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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
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Flammes

Flammes
Patrick Bokanowski
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Experimental Film
France
1998
4 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Dark percussive sounds call forth anthropomorphic creatures. They come to life in short dance etudes. Optically manipulated, they stretch into gaunt shapes, unfold in a thousand layers like exotic animals, dissolve into abstract paintings. They are pure creatures of light: fleeting, immaterial. The rhythmic sound motif colours their movements with sometimes pithy, sometimes breathy variations.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Patrick Bokanowski
Script
Patrick Bokanowski
Cinematographer
Daniel Borenstein
Editor
Eric Castera, Patrick Bokanowski
Producer
Patrick Bokanowski
Score
Michèle Bokanowski
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Flee

Flugt
Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Competition for the Audience Award 2021
Documentary Film
Denmark,
France,
Sweden,
Norway
2021
86 minutes
Danish,
Dari,
Russian,
English
Subtitles: 
English

For many years, Amin was unable to speak about the experience of his flight. It is only now that he finds the courage to open up to his schoolmate, filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen. From earliest childhood Amin’s life was marked by political unrest in his native country of Afghanistan and soon by growing up without a permanent home. His painful memories are visualized in haunting animations, interwoven with documentary footage.

It’s a well-known fact that flight does not lead from point A to point B and then simply ends. Amin’s story, though, shows how rocky and tortuous it can really be, leading from Afghanistan via Russia, Estonia and a few other stations to Denmark. Only when his life is on a safe track with an upcoming wedding and a good career does he find the strength to talk about what he had to go through to be where he is today. In an almost psychoanalytical setting, the protagonist – lying down – talks about his past. The narrative moves in a spiral between then and now, allowing for frequent respites between the traumatic impressions that the poignant animation makes almost physically tangible. It’s no coincidence that “Flee” has already won multiple awards and is considered an “instant classic” even now.
Kim Busch

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Script
Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Amin
Editor
Janus Billeskov Jansen
Producer
Monica Hellström, Charlotte De La Gournerie, Signe Byrge Sørensen
Score
Uno Helmerson
Animation
Kenneth Ladekjær
World Sales
Shoshi Korman
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For a Fistful of Fries

Poulet frites
Jean Libon, Yves Hinant
Competition for the Audience Award 2021
Documentary Film
France,
Belgium
2021
100 minutes
French,
Urdu,
Bengali,
English
Subtitles: 
English

In Belgium and France, the documentary series “Strip-Tease” is real cult viewing. The creators of the TV production have now used more than twenty-year-old material to make a crime documentary in dirty black and white. The Brussels CID are investigating a murder case: A casual prostitute was killed in her flat. The discovery of a few French fries enables them to track down the perpetrator. True Crime.

The dead woman’s name was Kalima Sissou. Very quickly, the investigation focuses on her former boyfriend Alain, and so, in authentic, raw images, we watch Inspector Lemoine and his colleagues at work: at the crime scene, interrogating witnesses and, naturally, cross-examining the main suspect. Despite the serious character of the events, Jean Libon and Yves Hinant’s offbeat mixture of dark thriller and absurd reality comedy does not lack (black) humour. Shot in a simple cinéma-vérité style, the film does not embellish on what it shows. The creative and conceptual model is, of course, the series “Strip-Tease”, co-developed by Libon in 1985 and widely known for the unconventional, blunt and politically incorrect manner in which it tackled even delicate subjects. “For a Fistful of Fries” continues in this vein and takes us very close to the often incredibly profane action.
Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Jean Libon, Yves Hinant
Editor
Anouk Zivy
Producer
Bertrand Faivre, François Clerc
World Sales
Clémentine Hugot
Audience Award Competition 2021
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Garage, Engines & Men
Claire Simon
In the local garage, two mechanics – one trained and one apprentice superhero of everyday life – keep the engines of a Provençal village community running.
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Garage, Engines & Men

Garage, des moteurs et des hommes
Claire Simon
Competition for the Audience Award 2021
Documentary Film
France
2021
71 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing, English

Life without a car has become unthinkable in the country. This also goes for the sleepy village of Claviers in Provence, where Claire Simon went to school and her daughter experienced her first love with the baker’s son. Pensioners and tourists dominate the place today, and the bakery has long since given up. But the heart of the village continues to beat: in the garage. This is where the day-to-day dramas take place, where the weal and woe of its citizens are decided.

Christophe Scalia’s empire is one of men who accept women only as bystanders. Nevertheless, the mechanic and his apprentice, Romaric Rousselle, are quite willing to allow Claire Simon to watch their every move as they handle shock absorbers, spark plugs and brake pads, to listen to their every bantering conversation. They are completely absorbed in their role, turning into superheroes responsible not just for the proper functioning of all the two- and four-wheel vehicles that are so important in the country, but also of the entire village. This is where local politics and family planning, generational conflicts and the economy are discussed, occasionally accompanied by music from Coppola’s “The Godfather” which Christophe has set as his mobile phone ringtone. To make everyday life look more exciting than any fiction through patient observation, that is the miracle of Claire Simon’s documentary work.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Claire Simon
Script
Claire Simon
Cinematographer
Claire Simon
Editor
Luc Forveille
Producer
Rebecca Houzel
Sound
Frédéric Buy
Score
Nicolas Repac
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Handwritten

Escrito à mão
Lui Avallos
Extended Reality 2021
-
Brazil,
Portugal,
Italy,
France
2021
9 minutes
Portuguese (Brazil),
Italian,
French,
English

The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed human relationships. Archive material, 360° footage and artificially generated images are used to create a synaesthetic essay film about loneliness, insecurity and the increasing shift of our everyday life into the digital realm. Dystopic and anonymous stories merge in a collage of the disturbing social and political phenomena of our time.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Rodrigo Moreira
Production Company
Mundivagante Studio
Editor
Lui Avallos
Narrator
Lui Avallos, Agnese Riaudo, Filippo Stagnini, Jessica Menezes
Director
Lui Avallos
Cinematographer
Lui Avallos
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Heart

Yollotl
Fernando Colin Roque
International Competition Short Film 2021
Documentary Film
France
2020
17 minutes
Spanish
Subtitles: 
English

A voice speaking the Aztec language Nahuatl and a ritual song accompany the children’s games in the Mayan rain forest. They put their ears to the trees which seem to speak to each other and to the universe. They listen to an ancient love story that continues today. A myth of Mesoamerican culture is invoked. Animated sequences and extreme backlighting visualize the tree’s inner life. What images may emerge in the children’s mind’s eyes?

Anke Leweke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Fernando Colin Roque
Script
Chloé Belloc
Cinematographer
Fernando Colin Roque
Editor
Fernando Colin Roque, Chloé Belloc, Mathilde Lavenne
Producer
Eric Prigent
Co-Producer
Eduardo Martinez
Sound
Nicolas Verhaeghe, Yannick Delmaire
Score
Fernando Colin Roque
Animation
Fernando Colin Roque
World Sales
Natalia Trebik
Narrator
Fernando Colin Roque