Nuit
Ann Holmgren
The portrait of a blind, unkempt woman, filmed in her realm, which confronts us viewers with our set of viewing habits and aesthetic rules.
D
Film Archive
Nuit
Documentary Film
2018
15 minutes
subtitles:
German
Ideas of beauty are subject to cultural norms. The protagonist Nuit has no way of knowing these conventions: She has been blind from birth. The blindness also applies to her awareness of social rules, says the narrator. The result is a very idiosyncratic and uncomfortable portrait of an unkempt woman, filmed in her realm, which confronts us viewers with our viewing habits and aesthetic rules and gives dignity and empowerment to an outcast.
Annina Wettstein
Annina Wettstein
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Exit
Karen Winther
Karen Winther is ashamed when she remembers her past as a right wing extremist. But she is also curious: how was this possible? And how do others cope with the same radical ballast?
Exit
When Karen Winther comes across a few old boxes during a move she finds herself confronted with her past. On top are some swastika stickers, next to a tape labelled “Blitz” and “Hits”, and a lot of stuff decorated with the imperial eagle. Twenty years ago she joined a right-wing extremist organisation in Norway, looking for adventure and like-minded people. “It’s embarrassing to look at,” she comments in the voice over.
“Exit” is her film, her story, and yet the plot soon points in other directions, refuses to be constrained by its own structure. Winther travels to the US to meet women who also used to move in right-wing extremist circles. She sits in the car with a former left-wing extremist activist, talking about a formative encounter many years ago. She meets Ingo Hasselbach, “The Führer of Berlin”, whose career in the East German neo-Nazi scene is the subject of Winfried Bonengel’s film “Führer Ex”. And she meets a former jihadist who served a sentence in a Paris prison. In addition to surprisingly similar motivations and experiences, what they all have in common are the difficulties caused by their “Exits” – feelings of guilt, but also threats from still active members.
Carolin Weidner
Awarded with the Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, the Young Eyes Film Award and the Gedanken-Aufschluss Prize from the Jury of juvenile and yound adult prisoners of JSA Regis-Breitingen
“Exit” is her film, her story, and yet the plot soon points in other directions, refuses to be constrained by its own structure. Winther travels to the US to meet women who also used to move in right-wing extremist circles. She sits in the car with a former left-wing extremist activist, talking about a formative encounter many years ago. She meets Ingo Hasselbach, “The Führer of Berlin”, whose career in the East German neo-Nazi scene is the subject of Winfried Bonengel’s film “Führer Ex”. And she meets a former jihadist who served a sentence in a Paris prison. In addition to surprisingly similar motivations and experiences, what they all have in common are the difficulties caused by their “Exits” – feelings of guilt, but also threats from still active members.
Carolin Weidner
Awarded with the Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, the Young Eyes Film Award and the Gedanken-Aufschluss Prize from the Jury of juvenile and yound adult prisoners of JSA Regis-Breitingen
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
The Shape of Now
Manuel Correa
Manuel Correa’s experimental film looks at the present recently pacified and yet leaden post-war period in Colombia – while itself struggling for orientation.
The Shape of Now
Documentary Film
2018
70 minutes
subtitles:
English
Credits
At first an insect works its way out of the ground – laboriously, trying to get its bearings, brushing the heavy sand from its wings. Coming out of the soil it pierces the surface of the planet and turns once around itself, exactly as if it was taking a look around the present it just crawled into. Manuel Correa’s experimental documentary is a lot like this industrious animal that has soil sticking to its body, whose eyes are still clouded and whose wings are still flapping slowly.
According to estimates around 200,000 people lost their lives in the 50-year Colombian civil war. Another 25,000 were kidnapped, many are still considered missing. When the peace deal between the government and the FARC rebels was made in November 2016, guns were banned from the conflict. But the country’s population have since faced the almost impossible task of having to agree on a common past. “The Shape of Now” illuminates this strenuous process and thus Colombia’s leaden present from very different perspectives. And just like the people of this country – the survivors, the grieving mothers, the historians and experts – this film, too, is still in first orientation mode.
Lukas Stern
According to estimates around 200,000 people lost their lives in the 50-year Colombian civil war. Another 25,000 were kidnapped, many are still considered missing. When the peace deal between the government and the FARC rebels was made in November 2016, guns were banned from the conflict. But the country’s population have since faced the almost impossible task of having to agree on a common past. “The Shape of Now” illuminates this strenuous process and thus Colombia’s leaden present from very different perspectives. And just like the people of this country – the survivors, the grieving mothers, the historians and experts – this film, too, is still in first orientation mode.
Lukas Stern
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Childhood
Margreth Olin
A forest idyll – the world of a community of preschool children whose only task is to play. Without commentary and (almost) without adults, Margreth Olin explores a childhood paradise.
Childhood
An idyllic place in the forest – the world of a community of children. We even get the brief impression that they are on their own here. But the area is part of a kindergarten that works wholly without the quaint notion of early childhood education. It’s run on the principle that children learn by themselves. Fantastic figures are made, using everything the forest has to offer, stick horses are carved, whole kitchens built. They have no other task but to play – with the others and with nature. Adults appear only marginally. Their role is that of companion. They make suggestions, unobtrusively teach the children how to realise their ideas. There’s a beautiful scene in winter: two kids are sitting peacefully under a bush, eating snow jellybeans, lost in thought and wholly caught up in their pretence. But even the most wonderful time in kindergarten has to end. When school starts they must say goodbye to their forest paradise.
Margreth Olin observed the children aged one to six in their world over one year. In perfect Direct Cinema style she uses no explanatory voice-over or conversations between adults. The film’s story arc is determined only by the children’s play and interactions, following the change of seasons.
Lina Dinkla
Margreth Olin observed the children aged one to six in their world over one year. In perfect Direct Cinema style she uses no explanatory voice-over or conversations between adults. The film’s story arc is determined only by the children’s play and interactions, following the change of seasons.
Lina Dinkla
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Mum’s Hair
Animadoc
2017
6 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
When Maja was 16 years old, her mother, the filmmaker Anita Killi, was diagnosed with cancer. Nobody knew what the outcome would be. But the whole family felt that a reservoir of good memories could help to survive the difficult time. A touching animated documentary was made out of the more than 2,000 pictures Maja took within a period of two years. A film that shows clearly that it’s not the hair that matters but the smile underneath.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
Golden Dove International Competition Animated Documentary;
Nominated for Young Eyes Film Award
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
Golden Dove International Competition Animated Documentary;
Nominated for Young Eyes Film Award
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Thea
Halvor Nitteberg
A serious illness is no excuse to be in a bad mood.
A serious illness is no excuse to be in a bad mood. Thea is an epileptic and loves to tell jokes – at which she herself laughs the loudest.
Lina Dinkla
Lina Dinkla
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
When I Hear the Birds Sing
Trine Vallevik Håbjørg
Five adolescents remember the war at the Ivory Coast.
When I Hear the Birds Sing
Five adolescents remember the war at the Ivory Coast. Now, in the refugee camp, they can laugh and make plans for the future again.
Lina Dinkla
Lina Dinkla
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Daughter of Guang Nan
Michael Mellemløkken
Ten-year-old Yanxuan lives in the South Chinese Mountains and loves what every girl loves: singing and dancing like the stars on television. Her greatest wish, though, is to celebrate her birthday with the whole family.
Daughter of Guang Nan
Credits
Binbin Cai
Michael Mellemløkken
Michael Mellemløkken
Rune van Deurs
Ten-year-old Yanxuan lives in the South Chinese Mountains and loves what every girl loves: singing and dancing like the stars on television. Her greatest wish, though, is to celebrate her birthday with the whole family. But her parents work far away.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Eternal Hunting Grounds
Elin Grimstad
A silvery fish, a white rabbit, a small sparrow – two children look for dead animals by the sea and in the forest to bury them in their multicoloured cemetery named “Eternal Hunting Grounds”.
Eternal Hunting Grounds
Animated Film
2016
19 minutes
subtitles:
English
A silvery fish, a white rabbit, a small sparrow – two children look for dead animals by the sea and in the forest to bury them in their multicoloured cemetery named “Eternal Hunting Grounds”. The honest and at the same time magical story by Elin Grimstad makes the children discover what death means through their adventures. It is immediately captivating by its very plastic design, rich in different materials, its vibrant sound world and the emotional voice of its narrator.
André Eckardt
Golden Dove Best Animated Short Film (International Competition Short Documentary and Animation Film);
Nominated for mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
André Eckardt
Golden Dove Best Animated Short Film (International Competition Short Documentary and Animation Film);
Nominated for mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Heritage
Animadoc
2015
21 minutes
subtitles:
English
Christian regularly records videos he wants to give his little son as memorabilia and in which he talks about the future and a life he is not going to share. He thinks about what a father should explain – man to man. Intercutting these monologues with animated sequences and private recordings, the film revolves around the question: what is left of a person when they go?
Annegret Richter
Annegret Richter
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Ana Ana (I Am Me)
Corinne van Egeraat, Petr Lom
Young female artists in Cairo, treading a fine line between self-determination and tradition. A political poem with art objects and performances in oscillating images.
Ana Ana (I Am Me)
Documentary Film
2013
75 minutes
subtitles:
English
Where censorship rules, the hour of the metaphor has come. The Arab Spring in Egypt didn’t change much about this. The traditional roles assigned to women are still the same. Four young female artists from Cairo are cautiously exploring this thin line between poetry and prohibition in their works. They still have to hide their longing for creativity and self-realisation as well as their own ideas of sexuality and physicality under headscarves. The film translates this dichotomy between being and appearing into oscillating images that make us feel some of the fear and tension these women experience.
The Czech-born Canadian director Petr Lom and the Dutch filmmaker Corinne van Egeraat met the four theatre, photo and video artists at a workshop. They have been working together on this project since 2011, not just as actors, but also as co-authors. Their artistic objects and performances unfold a kaleidoscope of associations that dominate the film’s visual world. Past master Ryūichi Sakamoto provided the discrete but effective score. Ultimately, “Ana Ana” is a poem that couldn’t be more political.
Cornelia Klauß
The Czech-born Canadian director Petr Lom and the Dutch filmmaker Corinne van Egeraat met the four theatre, photo and video artists at a workshop. They have been working together on this project since 2011, not just as actors, but also as co-authors. Their artistic objects and performances unfold a kaleidoscope of associations that dominate the film’s visual world. Past master Ryūichi Sakamoto provided the discrete but effective score. Ultimately, “Ana Ana” is a poem that couldn’t be more political.
Cornelia Klauß
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Mama arbeitet im Westen – Eine Kindheit in Polen
Åse Svenheim Drivenes
The 13-year-old Polish boy Kuba takes care of his seven-year-old brother. Both parents work abroad. Until Kuba reaches his limits … Children in crisis.
Mama arbeitet im Westen – Eine Kindheit in Polen
Credits
Anita Rehoff Larsen, Tone Grøttjord
Åse Svenheim Drivenes
Eirik Myhr
Michał Jarosiński, Jacek Gruszka
Åse Svenheim Drivenes
Håkon Lammetun, Petter Fagerlund, Bartosz Idzi
Katja Wildermuth
Kuba is 13 years old, his brother Mikołaj is seven. Kuba wakes his brother up, asks him to eat breakfast, the boy refuses. They go out to together to buy some crisps and walk home hand in hand. At night they sit at home and play computer games. There’s something missing in this daily routine: where are the adults?
Kuba’s and Mikołaj’s parents are not in the same country as their sons. Their father works in Scotland, their mother in Austria, while the sons are waiting in Poland for one of them to come home. At school Kuba is not allowed to tell that the two boys are alone, and the construction seems indeed to be tottering only when Kuba reaches his limits and behaves conspicuously.
The film is a disconcerting demonstration of how responsibilities have shifted with the labour markets and how economic problems can lead to passive violence against the weakest members of our society.
Kuba’s and Mikołaj’s parents are not in the same country as their sons. Their father works in Scotland, their mother in Austria, while the sons are waiting in Poland for one of them to come home. At school Kuba is not allowed to tell that the two boys are alone, and the construction seems indeed to be tottering only when Kuba reaches his limits and behaves conspicuously.
The film is a disconcerting demonstration of how responsibilities have shifted with the labour markets and how economic problems can lead to passive violence against the weakest members of our society.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Me and My Moulton
Torill Kove
A seven-year-old girl, the daughter of a modernist architect’s family, wants an ordinary family, ordinary for 1960s Norway. But her father has a beard – the only man in the whole town.
Me and My Moulton
Animated Film
2014
15 minutes
subtitles:
No
A seven-year-old girl, the daughter of a modernist architect’s family, wants an ordinary family, ordinary for 1960s Norway. But her father has a beard – the only man in the whole town.
Mephisto 97.6 Audience Award 2014
Mephisto 97.6 Audience Award 2014
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Diary From the Revolution
Nizam Najjar
A year among the Libyan rebels: skirmishes, provisional camp life, a charismatic patriarch. A rare insight into structures and the people behind them.
Diary From the Revolution
Documentary Film
2012
79 minutes
subtitles:
English
The first image: a reminiscence of Western movies – the director Nizam Najjar in a dusty landscape. But he can’t keep up this kind of cool for long; in Tripoli he is not deceived by the paroxysms of joy. Parts of the country are still occupied by Gaddafi’s troops; the front lines in Libya are confusing. He has spent the last ten years in the safety of exile in Oslo. Now that his country is in upheaval, nothing will keep him there. “Armed” with his camera he joins the rebels at Misrata, not concealing his fear. He is allowed to live among the irregular troops lead by Haj Siddiq as “one of them” for more than a year. He records skirmishes, problems with arms supplies and the provisional camp life in a video diary. His observations of the Al Gabra Brigade themselves are equally enlightening. What is its structure, how do the characters change? Even though they might die as heroes, all these young rebels have plans for a life on earth. The call for a “martyr’s death” sounds more and more like a hollow phrase. The charismatic figure of Haj Siddiq is at the centre of the filmmaker’s focus. Like a patriarch the former developer has gathered his family and former employees around him and made them his loyal followers. His smug style of leadership already contains calculations for the assumption of power after victory.
Cornelia Klauß
Cornelia Klauß
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Childhood is an unbroken series of new challenges, which makes parental comfort and encouragement all the more important. But what if one’s father is absent for years or forever, because he is in prison? An insightful film about growing up in a difficult family situation.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
My Stolen Revolution
Nahid Persson Sarvestani
Women who were tortured in Iranian prisons after the Shah was overthrown meet again for the first time to break their silence. Liberation through the power of art.
My Stolen Revolution
Credits
Nahid Persson Sarvestani
Nahid Persson Sarvestani
Adam Norden
Nicklas Karpaty, Makan
Emil Engerdahl, Nahid Persson Sarvestani
The archive material in the opening sequence evokes life in Iran in the 1970s. Many people managed to “lead a normal life”, while the oppositional groups still fought the Shah side by side. The Shah was thrown over, “but the Islamists were better organised than us”. Nahid Persson Sarvestani was a leftist activist at the time. She escaped brutal detention, which meant torture, rape and mass executions, only by great luck and her brother Rostam’s help. Rostam himself was killed.
A stubborn feeling of guilt makes Nahid Persson Sarvestani bring some of the few survivors of the former movement together many years later. The suggestive power of the objects and works of art created in and through prison and the five women’s harrowing memories of a regime that is still in power today are juxtaposed with a very personal approach and a discourse reflecting private thoughts and questions. More than that, the director manages to depict a profound feeling of fellowship by confronting us with the moving stories of strong personalities who shook off the chador not only symbolically.
Claudia Lehmann
Film Prize "Leipziger Ring" 2013
A stubborn feeling of guilt makes Nahid Persson Sarvestani bring some of the few survivors of the former movement together many years later. The suggestive power of the objects and works of art created in and through prison and the five women’s harrowing memories of a regime that is still in power today are juxtaposed with a very personal approach and a discourse reflecting private thoughts and questions. More than that, the director manages to depict a profound feeling of fellowship by confronting us with the moving stories of strong personalities who shook off the chador not only symbolically.
Claudia Lehmann
Film Prize "Leipziger Ring" 2013
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.