Film Archive

Media Name: 57ac00d5-14cf-4afb-a0ed-e24f51aa5dcd.jpg

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
German Competition 2021
Media Name: 36a165bd-5a44-4b5b-97da-abf6aeaf6218.jpg
A Sound of My Own
Rebecca Zehr
A visually and aurally outstanding film about the musician Marja Burchard, leader of the legendary band “Embryo”. An ode to hearing, experimentation and inspiration.
Media Name: 36a165bd-5a44-4b5b-97da-abf6aeaf6218.jpg

A Sound of My Own

A Sound of My Own
Rebecca Zehr
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
52 minutes
English,
German
Subtitles: 
English

She first appeared on stage at the age of eleven with the legendary Krautrock band “Embryo”. Her father, Christian Burchard, founded the band in 1969 and led it until 2016. Today – in her mid-thirties – Marja Burchard is the bandleader in this project, which has become a kind of family for her. But what seems so simple and organic is far from self-evident in an extremely male-dominated sphere, as Rebecca Zehr shows in her precisely observed and designed film.

This strictly and yet lightly composed melange mixes archival footage, psychedelic animation sequences and everyday observations of the normal life of a female musician between organisation and inspiration. With the visual level restricted to black and white and thus deliberately restrained, all the more attention is focused at the sound. The – who wonders? – outstanding score never takes the music for granted but works robustly with our perception. It’s the lucid, calm images and the narrative that is always anchored in the here and now that let this film stay incredibly haptic despite its concentration on our sense of hearing. Rebecca Zehr is not interested in portraying a musical legend, but in showing us what it could look and feel like to not only make music but live in it.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Rebecca Zehr
Cinematographer
Felix Press
Editor
Melanie Jilg
Producer
Rebecca Zehr, Katharina Rabl, University of Television and Film Munich (HFF)
Sound
Rebecca Zehr
Score
Marja Burchard
World Sales
Tina Janker
Winner of: Golden Dove (German Competition)
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
German Competition Short Film 2020
Media Name: 15bf28d7-5485-45ac-8ad0-d9b40435691c.jpg
The Chimney Swift
Frédéric Schuld
England, mid-19th century: children keep the flow of air going in narrow, sooty chimney flues. The report of a chimney sweep of the time is brought to life by pencil drawings.
Media Name: 15bf28d7-5485-45ac-8ad0-d9b40435691c.jpg

The Chimney Swift

Der Schornsteinsegler
Frédéric Schuld
German Competition Short Film 2020
Animated Film
Germany
2020
5 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
German

In the mid-19th century, a massive fireplace was the centrepiece of every stately home in England. Children are agile enough to keep the flow of air going in the narrow and dark flues. Their young skin is scraped raw by the sooty stone walls. Their fear of falling is as strong as their fear of the master’s punishment. Black-brown-red cross hatching and unusual camera perspectives bring to life the report of a chimney sweep of the time.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Frédéric Schuld
Script
Frédéric Schuld, Fabian Driehorst
Editor
Frédéric Schuld
Producer
Fabian Driehorst
Sound
Alex Müller-Welt
Score
Frédéric Schuld
Animation
Rebecca Blöcher, Alba Dragonetti, Frédéric Schuld
World Sales
Daniela Conrad
Funder
FFHSH
Narrator
Henry Holland, Joschua Zühlke
Retrospective 2023
Filmstill Ballad of the Matches
Ballad of the Matches
Johannes Hempel
Matches are out in the GDR! The workers threaten to go to the barricades. A harmless puppet animation? The satire was made just after the uprising of 17 June 1953.
Filmstill Ballad of the Matches

Ballad of the Matches

Die Streichholzballade
Johannes Hempel
Retrospective 2023
Animated Film
GDR
1953
16 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The people, among them an astonishing number of workers, react with visible anger to the sudden lack of matches – and threaten to go to the barricades. The problem is solved, of course. But does it mean the population’s anger is placated? Puppet animation director Johannes Hempel created this satire based on a draft by Wolfgang Kohlhaase – at the same time as the uprising of 17 June 1953.

Katharina Franck, Andreas Kötzing

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Johannes Hempel
Script
Wolfgang Kohlhase, Johannes Hempel
Cinematographer
Rolf Sperling
Editor
Manfred Porsche
Producer
DEFA-Studio für populärwissenschaftliche Filme
Score
H. W. Wiemann
Animation
Johannes Hempel, Herbert K. Schulz, Rosemarie Küssner
Retrospective 2021
Media Name: e613bfde-aa61-4e79-8966-86b9a8e18502.jpg
The Stormers
Dagobert Loewenberg, Peter Voigt
An outraged film pamphlet takes the West German coverage of the Six-Day War as an occasion to launch a sweeping verbal blow against the Bonn Republic.
Media Name: e613bfde-aa61-4e79-8966-86b9a8e18502.jpg

The Stormers

Die Stürmer
Dagobert Loewenberg, Peter Voigt
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1967
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

“If you want to storm, you use stormer methods”, to quote a direct reference to the infamous anti-Semitic smear sheet of the Nazi era. Set to shrill trumpet sounds, this outraged film pamphlet dissects, or so it seems, the drastic jargon of the “West German monopoly press”, especially the publications of the Springer publishing house, in their coverage of the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab coalition of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. At the same time, it uses the reviled style for its own argumentation. Under the auspices of the DEFA newsreel editors of “Der Augenzeuge” (The Eyewitness), a sweeping blow against the Bonn Republic arises from news images and superimposed newspaper articles.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Dagobert Loewenberg, Peter Voigt
Script
Dagobert Loewenberg
Cinematographer
Dieter Frycia
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme
Score
Kurt Zander
Genius Loci 2020
Media Name: 3f80bc65-dfa3-4b98-8ec6-93196502a7d9.png
S-Bahn Leipzig [excerpt]
Ralph Kollowa
The Leipzig S-Bahn was inaugurated in 1968/69 as a state-of-the-art mobility option for the population. The heart-shaped layout of the lines, recognizable even today, dates back to this time.
Media Name: 3f80bc65-dfa3-4b98-8ec6-93196502a7d9.png

S-Bahn Leipzig [excerpt]

S-Bahn Leipzig [Ausschnitt]
Ralph Kollowa
Genius Loci 2020
Documentary Film
GDR
1969
9 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

At the turn of 1968/69, the decision was taken to introduce a Leipzig City Express to “relieve inner city traffic as an attractive local passenger transport system”. A forward-looking measure of traffic policy which – at a time when the car-friendly city was still the dominant concept in urban planning – represented an appealing mobility option for the citizens of Leipzig.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ralph Kollowa
Producer
Filmstudio Kulturhaus der Eisenbahner Leipzig
Media Name: 13cf2119-c9cf-4119-be17-e4194b438be1.jpg

Saint Marietta

Saint Marietta
Ben Young
International Competition Short Film 2021
Documentary Film
UK
2021
13 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
English

The starting point of this documentary exploration is a 1980s abuse scandal in Cleveland, northern England, which turned out to be a scandal of false accusations. In his uniquely personal and literarily remarkable way, Ben Young discusses this historical event from offscreen. What we see is surprising contemporary footage of the region. Image and sound unite in a strong-minded attempt to capture a piece of local history by cinematic means.

Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ben Young
Script
Ben Young
Editor
Theo Watkins
Producer
Ben Young
Sound
Jack Eyres
Score
Blessed are the Hearts that Bend
Kids DOK 2021
Media Name: 0156faae-465a-4319-b8a0-2c447d65aeae.jpg
Saka sy Vorona – Cat and Bird
Franka Sachse
A simple yet fast-paced silhouette animation: The black cat and white bird's world unravels when they venture into each other's space.
Media Name: 0156faae-465a-4319-b8a0-2c447d65aeae.jpg

Saka sy Vorona – Cat and Bird

Saka sy Vorona – Katze und Vogel
Franka Sachse
Kids DOK 2021
Animated Film
Germany
2021
8 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Black and white, white and black. At first everything seems well-ordered in this bicoloured world. The black cat lives in the white field, the white bird in the black one. Each in their place. But when the two venture into each other’s space, nothing stays the same and their world unravels. A fast-paced silhouette animation.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Franka Sachse
Producer
Uli Seis
Sound
Christian Schunke, Florian Marquardt
Score
Andreas Kuch
Animation
Franka Sachse, Aline Helmcke
Funder
MDM, Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, BKM
Camera Lucida 2022
Filmstill Salamone, Pampa
Salamone, Pampa
Heinz Emigholz
Concrete hubris looms over the Argentinean pampa around Buenos Aires. The buildings of Francisco Salamone (1897–1959) advertise a pitiless modern age.
Filmstill Salamone, Pampa

Salamone, Pampa

Salamone, Pampa
Heinz Emigholz
Camera Lucida 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
62 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Slaughterhouses with concrete blades on top, monumental cemetery gates in the plains: Architect Francisco Salamone (1897–1959) shaped the image of the Argentinean pampa around Buenos Aires. In part 34 of his “Photography and beyond” series, Heinz Emigholz once more probes architecture for biographical traces. Salamone, who immigrated from Sicily as a child, realised his ideas between 1936 and 1940, when Mussolini’s Italy re-discovered architecture as an ideological craft.

Axes seem to be buried in the façade of the Coronel Pringles city hall. Elsewhere, stone tree fungi grow. And in front of the Saldungaray cemetery, viewed from the rear, a giant pancake or satellite dish forms, while in front the head of a suffering Jesus protrudes from the concrete. Monumental designs, occasionally incorporating elements of Art Deco or Italian Futurism, towering in the sky and advertising importance. Francisco Salamone worked in the years of the “Década infame”, that infamous decade followed shortly afterwards by the presidency of Juan Perón. The buildings seem inhospitable and full of hubris. They are supposed to herald modernity and progress and yet loomed terrifyingly over the peasantry of the country. Heinz Emigholz documents these intimidating buildings from every conceivable angle.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Heinz Emigholz
Script
Heinz Emigholz
Cinematographer
Heinz Emigholz, Till Beckmann
Editor
Till Beckmann, Heinz Emigholz
Producer
Irene von Alberti, Frieder Schlaich
Sound
Esteban Bellotto, Christian Obermaier, Jochen Jezussek
World Sales
Frieder Schlaich
Filmstill Salute to the Sun

Salute to the Sun

Pozdrav suncu
Darko Masnec
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2022
Animated Film
Croatia
2022
9 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

It’s lonely out in space and only the sun can warm you. In his imaginative 2D animation, Darko Masnec makes lines come alive and breathes life into abstract geometrical figures, as if Paul Klee and the Shadoks were celebrating a colourful banquet of metamorphoses. Stylised forms sprout luminescent organic compounds that tell a touching love story in outer space.

Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Darko Masnec
Script
Darko Masnec, Lana Cirkveni
Cinematographer
Darko Masnec
Editor
Darko Masnec
Producer
Stjepan Milas
Sound
Luka Smetiško
Sound Design
Luka Smetiško
Score
Luka Smetiško
Animation
Darko Masnec, Anita Kos, Stjepan Milas
World Sales
Vanja Andrijević
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
Extended Reality: DOK Neuland 2021
Media Name: 2ced9da8-a2fe-48f3-b90a-31f4420bc91b.jpg
Samsara
Hsin-Chien Huang
Earth is destroyed, time nothing but an illusion. In space we explore our new collective consciousness and assume forms not originally envisaged by our DNA.
2021
Media Name: 2ced9da8-a2fe-48f3-b90a-31f4420bc91b.jpg

Samsara

Lun hui
Hsin-Chien Huang
Extended Reality 2021
-
Taiwan
2021
21 minutes
English

What happens when we have to leave the destroyed earth? This VR experience takes us into space: Our consciousness becomes collective and our DNA is modified into new life forms. Time is nothing but an illusion here – past, present and future merge. We end up where we began, but in what form and when? A cycle of endless reincarnation.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Hsiao-Yue Tsau
Executive Producer
Chung-Hsien Chen
Production Company
Virtual and Physical Media Integration Association of Taiwan
Editor
Hsin-Chien Huang
Interactive Design
Wei-Chieh Chiu
Artistic Design
Guan-Yi Li, Zu-Wei Chen
Creative Technologist
Wei-Chieh Chiu, Hua-Lun Wu, Chun-Yen Yu, Pei-Yang Yeh
Motion Capture
4DViews
Sound
Jason Binnick
Score
Jason Binnick
Director
Hsin-Chien Huang
German Competition Documentary Film 2023
Filmstill Showhouse
Showhouse
Anna Lauenstein, Max Hilsamer
“The world in one garden” – with this claim of omnipotence, the construction of the Botanical Garden in Dahlem began. The deeper one enters, the clearer the traces of imperialist thinking emerge.
Filmstill Showhouse

Showhouse

Schauhaus
Anna Lauenstein, Max Hilsamer
German Competition Documentary Film 2023
Documentary Film
Germany
2023
30 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

From a distance, the glass greenhouse looks like a spaceship which could have landed decades or only minutes ago. In any case, the Botanical Garden in Berlin seems to belong to another era. A group of young people are exploring, feeling plants, trees, and the building according to their very own criteria. Are they aliens? Are they imitating the expeditions of German explorers from the colonial period?

The commentary muses on the history of the place: at the end of the 19th century, work began on the construction of the new greenhouses of the Botanical Garden in Dahlem to bring the world to one garden. This idea formulated a claim of omnipotence, too. In the rambling park, the camera comes across the naturalistic statue of a semi-nude man sowing seeds. It was created by the sculptor Hermann Joachim Pagels, who was very successful under the Nazis. The deeper the film penetrates the thickets of this garden, the more traces of imperial and colonialist thinking come to light. But the Botanical Garden is also a utopian place. What if this greenhouse-spaceship were to take off to distant spheres again? Could the plants guarantee the survival of our species on other planets? But perhaps they have a different plan, a life of their own?

Anke Leweke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Anna Lauenstein, Max Hilsamer
Cinematographer
Max Hilsamer
Editor
Max Hilsamer, Anna Lauenstein
Sound
Adrian Gutzelnig
Score
Sebastian Eppner
-
Martina Weber
Nominated for: Gedanken Aufschluss Prize
German Competition 2022
Filmstill Slaughterhouses of Modernity
Slaughterhouses of Modernity
Heinz Emigholz
From the Argentinean pampa to the Bolivian highlands to the middle of Berlin: a trenchant critique of German history in its most visible manifestation, architecture.
Filmstill Slaughterhouses of Modernity

Slaughterhouses of Modernity

Schlachthäuser der Moderne
Heinz Emigholz
German Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
80 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

An Argentinean builder who has built council halls, cemetery gates and abattoirs in the pampa as if from a modernist assembly line. Then a Bolivian architect, whose gaudy functional buildings in the highland defy description and imagination. Last, but not least, a new old palace in the middle of Berlin. Connections are plentiful, none of them edifying. Heinz Emigholz uses them for a pamphlet against stylistic amnesia and historical falsification.

The first film in Heinz Emigholz’s series “Photography and beyond” was released in 1983 and, including the two works screened by DOK Leipzig this year in the Camera Lucida section, there are now 35. But although “Slaughterhouses of Modernity” uses a number of sequences from the other two works, it has little in common with them in terms of form and ductus. While the aforementioned rather minimalist films do without commentary and partly without inserts, this one is characterised by its edgy monologues and courageous use of stylistic inconsistencies. Polemics and black humour are not unusual in Emigholz’s universe. But one has never seen him spoiling for a fight as gleefully as in this complex exploration of German history and its ugly manifestations. Not so much a late work as a new departure.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Heinz Emigholz
Script
Heinz Emigholz
Cinematographer
Till Beckmann, Heinz Emigholz
Editor
Heinz Emigholz, Till Beckmann
Producer
Frieder Schlaich, Irene von Alberti
Co-Producer
Rolf Bergmann
Sound
Esteban Bellotto, Rainer Gerlach, Christian Obermaier, Jochen Jezussek
Score
Kiev Stingl
World Sales
Frieder Schlaich
Key Collaborator
Angel Cordero Siles
Narrator
Susanne Bredehöft, Heinz Emigholz, Kiev Stingl, Stefan Kolosko, Arno Brandlhuber
Nominated for: VER.DI Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
Kids DOK 2023
Filmstill Spin Cycle
Spin Cycle
Gurli Bachmann
A pair of socks lose sight of each other during the spin cycle of the washing machine. Being suddenly alone gives rise to new encounters and puts the socks’ friendship to a tough test.
Filmstill Spin Cycle

Spin Cycle

Schleudergang
Gurli Bachmann
Kids DOK 2023
Animated Film
Germany
2022
7 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

A pair of socks used to be inseparable and lived as soulmates in their drawer. But they lose sight of each other during the spin cycle in the washing machine. How awful to be suddenly alone, one of the socks thinks. But for the first time it becomes aware of the other clothes around it. These new encounters put the socks’ friendship to a tough test.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Gurli Bachmann
Producer
Gurli Bachmann
Sound
Tiago Tobias Cabral Fernandes
Sound Design
Arzu Saglam
Animation
Gurli Bachmann, Leonard Ermel
Genius Loci 2020
Media Name: 44fd2ef7-15a6-46aa-b0a6-9b84493cf3c0.png
Barrier Games
Ralph Kollowa
An ironic short film set to the music of Schlager singer Chris Doerk: The seemingly endless wait at railway crossings leads to the formation of couples and other fateful events.
Media Name: 44fd2ef7-15a6-46aa-b0a6-9b84493cf3c0.png

Barrier Games

Schrankenspiele
Ralph Kollowa
Genius Loci 2020
Documentary Film
GDR
1970
5 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The railway from the point of view of people who travel by bicycle, on foot or by car: A Schlager music recording of GDR singer Chris Doerk is re-cut many times to accompany the endless-seeming wait at a railway crossing. Meanwhile, young people find each other, couples form. Even the birth of a child finds a place in this ironic short film.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ralph Kollowa
Producer
Amateurfilm Studio VEB Flachglaskombinat Torgau