Film Archive

Land (Film Archive)

German Competition Short Film 2019
Friends
Florian Grolig

The normal small guy and the elsewhere perhaps equally normal big guy are inseparable. Together they tramp through the world, brimming with happiness. Their friendship defies gravity.

Friends

Animated Film
Germany
2019
8 minutes
Subtitles: 
_without dialogue / subtitles

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Florian Grolig
Director
Florian Grolig
Music
Thomas Hoehl
Animation
Julian Vavrovsky, Florian Grolig, Nadya Fedotova, Dina Velikovskaya
Script
Florian Grolig
Sound
Tobias Boehm, Christian Wittmoser
Tramping through the world together, brimming with happiness. One of them is small, like his compatriots. The other is extremely big in comparison. The normal small one and the elsewhere perhaps equally normal big one are inseparable. Their friendship defies gravity. In sepia-tinted black on white and white on black scenes, Florian Grolig draws poignantly what a friendship must endure when it’s outside the given norm. Tragicomic – in Grolig’s unmistakable style.

Nadja Rademacher
German Competition Short Film 2019
From My Desert Veneta Androva

The young art investor is ecstatic about the meeting. There he hangs, Martin, beautiful, alluring, exciting. It’s almost like love. But can the relationship last?

From My Desert

Animated Film
Germany
2019
14 minutes
Subtitles: 
English

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Veneta Androva
Director
Veneta Androva
Music
Nadia D’Aló, Benedikt Frey
Editor
Veneta Androva
Animation
Veneta Androva
Script
Veneta Androva
Sound
Nadia D’Aló, Benedikt Frey
Temperature: 21 °C. Humidity: 55 %. Optimum conditions for Martin to stay fresh and presentable. Rosy skin, bedroom eyes, a naughty little cap, that’s how he meets the young art investor in the depot of an anonymous airport. His master, Lucas Cranach the Elder, created him almost five hundred years ago. Now he hangs opposite a paralysed suit rendered ecstatic by his presence. They are talking about the art market. And yet about so much more.

Carolin Weidner
German Competition Short Film 2019
Gravedad
Matisse Gonzalez

A young woman in search of the lightness of being discovers gravity. Contentment floats only one metre above the ground. The full power of life, though, is found in space.

Gravedad

Animated Film
Germany
2019
11 minutes
Subtitles: 
German
English

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Toufik Abdedaim, Matisse Gonzalez
Director
Matisse Gonzalez
Music
Simone Pivetta, Clemens Wenger
Editor
Maximilian Merth
Animation
Matisse Gonzalez, Ryoji Yamada, Alice Reily de Souza, Christian Ramirez, Bianca Scali, Michelle Ong, Tao Zhang
Script
Matisse Gonzalez
Sound
Niklas Menschik, Sirius Kestel
A young woman in search of the lightness of being discovers gravity. Contentment doesn’t always need to fly high up in the sky, sometimes it floats only one meter above the ground. But the euphoric trip to the cosmos and the deepest depths brings about a change of perspective. Formally, Matisse Gonzalez’ visual language is partly pared down to its symbolism while describing very articulately and precisely emotional nuances as well as the full power of life.

André Eckardt



Honorable Mention in the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film.

German Competition Short Film 2019
Nacht ueber Kepler 452b Ben Voit

Flickering, passing patches of light. Blurred street views. Helpers manoeuvre homeless people into a minibus to save them from freezing to death. There’s not much more they can do.

Nacht ueber Kepler 452b

Documentary Film
Germany
2019
14 minutes
Subtitles: 
English

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Roj Younis, Roshak Ahmad, Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF
Director
Ben Voit
Cinematographer
Konrad Waldmann
Editor
Sianne Gevatter
Sound
Richard Meyer
Artistic Assistant
Luca Calluso
Flickering, passing patches of light emerging from the darkness. Street views dissolving into blurs. A human being lying on the ground. The star Kepler 452b is “the most hospitable of all exoplanets discovered in our galaxy”, the radio recording says. On earth, 1,400 light years away, helpers drive a minibus through a winter night to save homeless people from freezing to death. There’s not much more they can do.

Silvia Hallensleben
German Competition Short Film 2019
Nodon Tim Romanowsky

Three differently coloured principles stalk, taste and wind around each other. Shapes become figures become shapes, creating a living energy field with an electronic sound.

Nodon

Animated Film
Germany
2019
7 minutes
Subtitles: 
_without dialogue / subtitles

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Tim Romanowsky
Director
Tim Romanowsky
Animation
Tim Romanowsky
Sound
Julian Scherle
The word “Nodon” acts palindromicly: It is always itself, from whatever direction it is read. Three differently coloured principles stalk, taste and wind around each other, conquering and releasing space. The continuous transformations – whether lightly flowing or full of gravity – form an extremely lively energy field with electronic sounds that develops a fantastic pull as it takes us on a trip through the colour tunnel.

André Eckardt

Onironauta

Documentary Film
Cuba,
Germany
2019
21 minutes
Subtitles: 
English

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Valerie-Malin Schmid, KHM Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, EICTV
Director
Valerie-Malin Schmid
Music
Joel Jaffe, Mira Rachel Hanak
Cinematographer
Natalia Medina Leiva, David Aguilera Cogollo, Valerie-Malin Schmid
Editor
Rita Schwarze, Valerie-Malin Schmid
Sound
Henning Hein, Janis Ahnert, Marek Forreiter, Matthias Rohde
Rambling through Havana, the Afro-Cuban poet Omar reflects on memories and farewells, patriotism and censorship, his mythical verses blending the past and the present. It is the portrait of a poet and of an isolated island state, recorded in seemingly timeless everyday observations in words and images, filmed on 16 mm stock.

Frederik Lang
German Competition Short Film 2019
Opera Glasses
Mila Zhluktenko

A spectacle of visibility in the opera house foyer: checking oneself in the mirror, overzealous re-adjustments of one’s facial expression for a selfie, the inimitable coolness of aging cloakroom attendants.

Opera Glasses

Documentary Film
Germany
2019
24 minutes
Subtitles: 
English

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Daniel Asadi Faezi, HFF München
Director
Mila Zhluktenko
Cinematographer
Rebecca Hoeft
Editor
Felicitas Sonvilla
Sound
Andrii Rogachov
Opera glasses are necessary to watch the stage from the back rows of the auditorium. If you content yourself with the foyer, you only need alert eyes and instinct: not only for the larger-than-life gestures of musical theatre, but also for the small (self) performances in public space. Checking oneself in the mirror, overzealous re-adjustments of one’s facial expression for a selfie, the inimitable coolness of aging cloakroom attendants – all this is part of the spectacle of visibility.

Lukas Foerster



Awarded with a Golden Dove in the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film.

The Last Painting

Documentary Film
Germany
2018
14 minutes
Subtitles: 
No

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Inka Achté
Director
Tom Salt
Cinematographer
Tom Salt
Editor
Tom Salt, Nina Ijäs
A painter’s life without words. The photorealist John Salt works on a painting, a still life of old U.S. cars in front of fire walls. The routines of his life play out in the midst of an idyllic landscape; the dog is waiting, walks are taken, and the tiny stencils used to achieve absolute realism are stuck everywhere, even on the dog. Slowly the artist releases his grip on his tools. Memories are sorted, other cars are passing outside. A whole quiet human life is cleared up.

Saskia Walker



Honorable Mention in the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film.

German Competition Short Film 2019
The Qilin David Lalé, Sam Hopkins

What’s life in Guangzhou like? Everything can change at any time, a woman says. There are no laws in China. The providers of information are immigrants from various African nations.

The Qilin

Documentary Film
Germany,
UK
2019
19 minutes
Subtitles: 
English
German

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Sam Hopkins, David Lalé, Arne Birkenstock
Director
David Lalé, Sam Hopkins
Animation
VAMOS Animation
Sound
Chu-Li Shewring
The Chinese seaport of Guangzhou is regarded as one of the centres of the shadow economy. Economic success is usually not long in coming, all is business. For years, people from different African nations have emigrated to Guangzhou to try their luck. This film, whose protagonists must remain anonymous for security reasons, shadowy silhouettes, tells of their experiences.

Carolin Weidner
German Competition Short Film 2019
Tithonos und die Göttin der Morgenröte Jörg Weidner

The goddess of dawn has an affair with the god of war. The goddess of love condemns her rival to feel insatiable lust for mortals. An aesthetic and morbid puppet animation.

Tithonos und die Göttin der Morgenröte

Animated Film
Germany
2019
13 minutes
Subtitles: 
English

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Jörg Weidner
Director
Jörg Weidner
Animation
Martin Davies, Jörg Weidner
Sound
mk-filmton
Narrator
Rudolf Danielewicz
Artistic Design
Ulrich Jakob, Sebastian Schedo, Alejandro Calderon, Anna Brótonkova, Inka Perl
The goddess of dawn, Eos, has an affair with the god of war, Ares. His longtime lover Aphrodite, in turn, uses her divine power to condemn her rival to insatiable lust for young mortals. Thus Eos falls for the Prince Tithonos … This lesson in five acts is told as a puppet animation. Organic matter in different states – visibly decaying, crumbling and shrivelling – provides aesthetic and morbid testimony to the higher theme.

Nadja Rademacher

Where We Used to Swim

Documentary Film
Germany
2019
8 minutes
Subtitles: 
English

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Daniel Asadi Faezi
Director
Daniel Asadi Faezi
Cinematographer
Daniel Asadi Faezi
Editor
Narges Kalhor
Sound
Daniel Asadi Faezi, Andrew Mottl
The dried tears of Lake Urmia in northern Iran are for sale – salt in plastic bags at the roadside. Once the biggest lake in the Middle East, only a fraction of it is left today. This is its elegy, presenting both its former splendour and its state today. Wavering between factuality and melancholy, the film finally opts for a pessimistic view of society. The dying lake becomes a symbol.

Carolin Weidner