Film Archive

Sections (Film Archive)

German Competition 2020
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80.000 Schnitzels
Hannah Schweier
Monika has a new dream: She fights tirelessly to preserve her grandmother’s ailing inn and farm. A family chronicle and a film about life goals.
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80.000 Schnitzels

80.000 Schnitzel
Hannah Schweier
German Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Germany
2020
102 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Grandma Berta’s beloved “Zollhaus” is on the verge of ruin. She has dedicated her whole life to this inn and farm. Now her granddaughter Monika, the filmmaker’s sister, is to take over the heavily indebted family farm in the Upper Palatinate. What makes Monika decide to give up her previous plans and move to the countryside to live with her grandmother? The director decides to follow her sister for one year during this apparent labour of Sisyphus.

Monika puts all her energy into the ailing farm and is constantly confronted with its history: Grandma Berta’s schnitzel was legendary. But only the jukebox is left of the merry evenings in a packed inn. Berta had to bury her husband, two of her sons and a grandson. She is not a woman of tender words and unsparingly direct, which soon leads to conflict. The director at first watches her indefatigable sister in stunned disbelief. But gradually she understands that Monika has found a new dream in the “Zollhaus”. This enables her to offer an intimate insight into the chronicle of a family. The film confronts us with the universal question when it is the right time to live one’s dreams and how quickly this time may pass.
Annina Wettstein

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Hannah Schweier
Cinematographer
Stefanie Reinhard
Editor
Romy Steyer
Producer
Stefan Sporbert
Co-Producer
ZDF
Sound
Johannes Kunz
Score
Ella Zwietnig
Narrator
Hannah Schweier
Winner of: ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
German Competition 2021
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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.
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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)
German Competition 2020
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Nuclear Forever
Carsten Rau
A visually stunning and at the same time sober reckoning of the zero sum game between climate change and nuclear disaster: no dramatisation at all and yet deeply disturbing.
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Nuclear Forever

Atomkraft Forever
Carsten Rau
German Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Germany
2020
94 minutes
French,
German
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing

This detailed and sober look at the issue of nuclear power begins where Germany is currently standing: with shutting it off. It’s precisely because the film is anything but alarmist that the alarming aspect of the situation becomes clear. The nuclear nightmare is not over; a safe final nuclear waste repository is not in sight. And yet, boosted by the coal phase-out, many people seem to see “clean” nuclear energy as an option again. The terror of climate change trumps the terror of the nuclear worst case scenario. A zero sum game.

Carsten Rau succeeds masterfully in calmly probing the heated controversy. He talks to people who live with and off nuclear power. Engineer, scientist or innkeeper, he very deliberately frames them all with the same mixture of seriousness and nonchalance. The story is told without dramatisation, but with stunningly “beautiful” images that make the fascination with this technology quite comprehensible. When hip French nuclear engineers finally try to join the front line of climate protesters, we realise how false the talk of an “unavoidable option” is and always has been. The portrait of a society emerges that walked into a blind alley with open eyes and is slowly coming to realise that with every step it takes it is moving further away from the exit.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Carsten Rau
Script
Carsten Rau
Cinematographer
Andrzej Krol
Editor
Stephan Haase
Producer
Hauke Wendler, Carsten Rau
Co-Producer
SWR Südwestrundfunk, NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk
Sound
Augusto Castellano
Score
Ketan Bhatti, Vivan Bhatti
World Sales
Georg Gruber
Commissioning Editor
Kai Henkel, Timo Grosspietsch
German Competition 2022
Filmstill Blue Sky White Clouds
Blue Sky White Clouds
Astrid Menzel
A ten-day canoe trip on northern German waters is a test for granddaughter Astrid, her brother and her dementia-suffering grandmother. The prerequisite: re-adjusting every single minute.
Filmstill Blue Sky White Clouds

Blue Sky White Clouds

Blauer Himmel Weiße Wolken
Astrid Menzel
German Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
91 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Grandma has become a little doddery. And since the death of her husband, called E.O., ever bigger gaps have opened in her memory, and her disorientation has increased. Director Astrid Menzel makes a decision: to take a ten-day canoe trip on northern German waters with her brother and the 86-year-old lady. An adventure whose outcome is uncertain and which the three travellers have to face anew at every stage.

Looking at the sky, watching the changing cloud formations, being all there. Things that Astrid Menzel’s grandmother finds easier as her dementia progresses. Horses and beds are recognisable up there, and sometimes there are thoughts of the late E.O. A chain of disintegration has been set in motion: The beloved house has become confusing, a home for grandma is being searched, the relatives feel nagging guilt. The granddaughter Astrid feels the need for action. Gently and with endless patience, she involves the elderly lady in the preparations and organisation of a canoe trip that would be a challenge for any beginner: Travelling on the river day in and day out, a different sleeping place almost every night. Old and young are trying to find strategies of interaction. Rummikub matches and writing a travel diary anchor them, but emotional breakdowns, too, are part of the endeavour.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Astrid Menzel
Cinematographer
Astrid Menzel
Editor
Justin Koch
Producer
Mike Beilfuss, Urs Krüger
Sound
Astrid Menzel
Score
André Feldhaus, Anders Wasserfall
Winner of: Young Eyes Film Award
German Competition 2022
Filmstill Daniel Richter
Daniel Richter
Pepe Danquart
Three years with Daniel Richter: Pepe Danquart opens the door to the famous painter’s studio for us and draws a multifaceted and knowledgeable portrait of the political artist.
Filmstill Daniel Richter

Daniel Richter

Daniel Richter
Pepe Danquart
German Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
117 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Few artist portraits give us the privilege of getting as close to the painter as if we had free access to his studio. Over a period of three years, Pepe Danquart got to accompany the painter Daniel Richter, watching him paint, negotiate with his gallerist, talk to his publisher and joke with fellow artist Jonathan Meese. Danquart interviews collectors, attends auctions and even visits record shops.

From all this the complex image of an artist emerges who appreciates the abstract as much as the figurative and who seems to be searching constantly for the meaning of his work. Daniel Richter’s paintings fetch top prices on the art market – an aspect that neither Pepe Danquart nor the painter leave out, but that is, fortunately, not the focus here. Openings, auctions and gala dinners structure the narrative, but its heart is Richter’s studio, where we see him as a craftsman, a restless doer, who reflects surprisingly frankly and self-deprecatingly on his work, which to him is always also a political act. He talks about the process of creation, the effect, meaning and significance of his paintings, makes clear statements and, notwithstanding a certain amount of craving for recognition, ultimately doesn’t take himself more seriously than necessary.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Pepe Danquart
Cinematographer
Daniel Gottschalk, Marvin Hesse
Editor
Toni Froschhammer
Producer
Vanessa Nöcker, Benjamin Seikel
Co-Producer
Annegret Weitkämper-Krug
Sound
Andre Zacher, Etienne Haug, Kai Ziarkowski, Tobias Welmering, Krischan Rudolph
Score
Ramon Kramer
World Sales
Dietmar Güntsche
Nominated for: VER.DI Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
German Competition 2022
Filmstill Dead Birds Flying High
Dead Birds Flying High
Sönje Storm
Jürgen Friedrich Mahrt (1882–1940) was only too happy to neglect his duties as a farmer for the loving documentation of a state of nature that is lost today.
Filmstill Dead Birds Flying High

Dead Birds Flying High

Die toten Vögel sind oben
Sönje Storm
German Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
83 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

In a northern German attic: boxes of pinned butterflies, carefully hand-coloured photographs of the local flora and fauna, hundreds of stuffed and dusty birds – Jürgen Friedrich Mahrt (1882–1940) did a great job. His collections echo a present that doesn’t exist anymore. And yet all signs of an ecological crisis can be found buried in them.

Dead or alive? There is an uncanny element in Jürgen Friedrich Mahrt’s photos: One can’t always be sure whether the animal captured in the frame is the result of hours of waiting or just a specimen staged to look lifelike. The ripples around the duck on the pond are missing, the bird of prey looks suspiciously calm directly into the lens. Mahrt crossed borders. He sacrificed his duties as a farmer to the urge to document natural environments we hardly find in nature today. Ancient forests, enchanted moors, macro views of fat, colourful caterpillars – almost magical images that make one sad in view of a variety irretrievably lost. His great-granddaughter Sönje Storm has the quiet eccentric’s estate analysed by experts, shows peat cutters, extinct species and a changing countryside. An exceedingly stimulating excursion, congenially accompanied by the scurrilous electronica sounds of Dominik Eulberg and Bertram Denzel.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Sönje Storm
Script
Sönje Storm
Cinematographer
Alexander Gheorghiu
Editor
Halina Daugird
Producer
Sönje Storm
Sound
Roman Pogorzelski
Score
Dominik Eulberg, Bertram Denzel, Henry Reyels
Winner of: Golden Dove (German Competition)
German Competition 2020
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The Guardian
Martina Priessner
A Syrian Orthodox nun lives in an abandoned estate in south-eastern Turkey. Despite hostilities from the Muslim neighbourhood: she won’t be driven out.
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The Guardian

Die Wächterin
Martina Priessner
German Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Germany
2020
87 minutes
Kurdish,
Turkish,
Turoyo
Subtitles: 
German

In a dilapidated village in south-eastern Turkey, a Syrian Orthodox nun endures alone with her animals. However strong the hostility of her predominantly Muslim neighbourhood may be: she won’t be driven out, for she has sworn to protect the church and not to leave the sacred place. This quietly filmed observation of everyday life focuses on an isolated woman who carries the pain of a whole community inside her.

The population of the village was tortured and driven away in the 1990s. The nun Dayrayto came here only afterwards. Today she rarely receives visits from passing believers. She usually spends her days doing maintenance work on the church and taking care of the animals. Right now she is worried about her old dog. Has he been poisoned? What to make of the provocations and threats she talks about? Dayrayto is always vigilant, even when she’s resting. From her elevated dwelling she looks far across the landscape, registering every vehicle, however distant. But she is in no way distracted by the presence of the film crew. The unobtrusive camera follows the nun – not at every turn, but as a constant, protective companion as she endures on her “bastion”. Loneliness, worries and fear shape this sparse life. They made her suspicious, but also fearless.
Annina Wettstein

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Martina Priessner
Script
Martina Priessner
Cinematographer
Meryem Yavuz
Editor
Özlem Sarıyıldız
Producer
Gregor Streiber, Friedemann Hottenbacher
Co-Producer
Martina Priessner
Sound
Robert F. Kellner
Winner of: Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize
German Competition 2020
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Borderland
Andreas Voigt
Along the river Oder: Virulent questions about homeland and community, everyday life and politics, asked with confident casualness, provide an account of the present.
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Borderland

Grenzland
Andreas Voigt
German Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Germany,
Poland
2020
100 minutes
English,
German,
Polish
Subtitles: 
German

The river Oder: A historical and cultural landscape churned again and again by the tide of events of the past century. A tale told in concentric circles about a region which was and still is the scene of the beginning, end and open middle of voluntary and involuntary migrations. Virulent issues of daily life and politics that, asked with confident casualness, provide a robust account of the present.

Movements and stories in the border region between Poland and Germany – Andreas Voigt’s new film takes up the themes of his 1992 work “Borderland – A Journey”. The charged term “homeland” stirs up (trouble in) the minds and hearts of the people: What it once was and what has become of it! Sure, that’s not the top priority in their daily agenda. But how people appropriate this term and how that in turn structures their attitudes also determines how they figure out the taste of life in the here and now of Europe. The search for closeness is confronted with the insistence on distance. Communication about belonging becomes flimsy because the body language says something different than the spoken word. As a film that’s not about administering a politically correct separation diet, “Borderland” provokes experiences and enables encounters.
Ralph Eue

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Andreas Voigt
Cinematographer
Marcus Lenz, Maurice Wilkerling
Editor
Ina Tangermann
Producer
Barbara Etz, Kazimierz Beer, Klaus Schmutzer
Co-Producer
MDR Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, RBB Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
Sound
Gerhard Ziegler, Peter Carstens, METRIX
Commissioning Editor
Thomas Beyer, Rolf Bergmann
Funder
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH, PISF, Poland Polish-German Film Fonds, Filmbüro MV, Nordmedia, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung GmbH, BKM
German Competition 2021
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Everyman and I
Katharina Pethke
How close is too close? The attempt to produce the portrait of an actor turns into a struggle between closeness and distance and a balancing act between fiction and reality.
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Everyman and I

Jedermann und Ich
Katharina Pethke
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
65 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English, German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing

Is it possible to get close to someone who sees their sole task in life in losing themself in the parts they play? How can a film portrait be created when every image only contributes to further fictionalization? Who is facing each other when the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred? Katharina Pethke looks back to dissect the past and her contradictory feelings for the celebrated actor Philipp Hochmair, following the lines of her own artistic and personal doubts.

The magnificent black and white images guide the eye from the surfaces to the details, whose meaning the director probes and questions in her subjective, tentative voiceover. The film preserves the rawness of unfinished reflections without getting mired in vagueness. Step by step, the honest assessment of a desire is achieved; a desire which could function only in the delicate balance between attraction and repulsion and from which Katharina Pethke frees herself by adopting a position of artistic distance. Her sometimes self-mocking commentary is supported by dramatic guitar riffs (provided by Hochmair’s band project “Die Elektrohand Gottes”) and underpinned by filmic references, all of which revolve around the making of images and the relationship between reality and imagination.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Katharina Pethke
Cinematographer
Katharina Pethke
Editor
Katharina Pethke
Producer
Katharina Pethke
Co-Producer
Fünferfilm UG, Julia Cöllen, Frank Scheuffele, Karsten Krause
Sound
Clemens Endreß
Score
Die Elektrohand Gottes
German Competition 2022
Filmstill Pastor Lothar Stops
Pastor Lothar Stops
Tilman König
A personal, enjoyably critical homage to the Jena pastor and left-wing activist Lothar König that accompanies the cantankerous original during his last months in church office.
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Pastor Lothar Stops

König hört auf
Tilman König
German Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
85 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Lothar König is an original. The long-term youth pastor from Jena doesn’t fit into any system. In the GDR he was under state surveillance, after reunification he was one of the most tireless warning voices against the growing right-wing radicalism. To this day, he takes to the barricades against the extreme right, often on the frontline. Nevertheless, this film portrait by his son Tilman is not an homage but a critical tribute to an outspoken character forced by retirement to re-invent himself.

Pastor König is not only regarded as one of the figureheads of the left-wing scene that organises punk concerts, rallies and football tournaments with young refugees. He also has a reputation as a fairly challenging personality. Tilman König shows his father only marginally in his role as a church official. Most of all, he introduces a man who can be courageous and determined, but also stubborn and unfair. His film is enjoyably interested above all in the here and now of this man, the things that Lothar still has to come to terms with. How will he manage the transition to retirement after a restless life between community work and political activism? How can the old rhetorical warhorse hold his own among people who really agree with him but seem to move away from him in thought, speech and action? The border-crosser is entering unknown terrain.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Tilman König
Cinematographer
Tilman König
Editor
Denise Lipfert, Tilman König
Producer
Dietmar Güntsche, Martin Rohé
Co-Producer
MDR, Tilman König
Sound
Frank Schubert
Sound Design
Frank Schubert
Score
Christian Walter
World Sales
Nadine Trapp
Commissioning Editor
Thomas Beyer
Funder
MDM
Winner of: Leipziger Ring, ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
German Competition 2021
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Head Fist Flag – Perspectives on the Thälmann Memorial
Betina Kuntzsch
Ten cinematic perspectives on a historical site: Ernst Thälmann Park in East Berlin. In 1986, an old gasworks made way for a housing estate – and a controversial monument.
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Head Fist Flag – Perspectives on the Thälmann Memorial

Kopf Faust Fahne – Perspektiven auf das Thälmanndenkmal
Betina Kuntzsch
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
47 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

For technical reasons – too massive! – this 50-ton bronze colossus was not demolished in 1993. Today it is listed as a historical monument, along with the associated housing estate. A relic from the old days: Today, the raised fist of the former German Communist Party leader and erstwhile GDR hero Ernst Thälmann in the Prenzlauer Berg park defies the collective forgetting of a not-so-long-ago past instead of heralding the victory of communism.

In 1986, an old municipal gasworks in East Berlin made way for a housing estate – and a monument that was controversial even then. Partly imagined, partly remembered and extensively researched throughout, Betina Kuntzsch assembles a complex narrative as part of her project “Vom Sockel Denken” about the Ernst-Thälmann-Memorial in Berlin: about a place full of history, viewed from ten different perspectives. In her omnibus film she skilfully uses various aesthetic and research tools. The successful combination of own footage, animation, archive material and oral history generates a kind of kaleidoscope, a gem of historiographic documentary-making and a parcours through a whole range of documentary film genres.
Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Betina Kuntzsch
Script
Betina Kuntzsch
Cinematographer
Sven Boeck, Martin Langner, Claire Roggan
Editor
Betina Kuntzsch
Producer
Maria Wischnewski
Sound
Michael Walz
Score
Joachim Gies
Animation
Betina Kuntzsch
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Lift Like a Girl

Ash ya Captain
Mayye Zayed
German Competition 2020
Documentary Film
Denmark,
Egypt,
Germany
2020
95 minutes
Arabic
Subtitles: 
English

Captain Ramadan’s “gym” is located in a dusty residential area near the port of Alexandria. This is where the former professional athlete has coached young women in weightlifting for over twenty years – including his daughter Nahla, the first Egyptian world champion. An extraordinarily intimate portrait of this lone and fighter who raised Egypt’s young athletes to world class level with self-funding, which also puts the focus on a second protagonist: young Asmaa.

Mayye Zayed has followed the Captain’s student, who was fourteen at the start, for four years. Wearing a red Popeye t-shirt and backed by her coach, she fights her way to the global top league matches. The story of the inner highs and lows of the introverted young woman unfolds gently as the camera captures her emotional states precisely without many words. The dramaturgy of the chronological narrative follows the events in the best direct cinema manner, impressively adapting to the rhythm of life – and death. The result is the portrait of an unusual relationship and of a harsh environment that demands more than physical strength from the participants.
Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Mayye Zayed
Script
Mayye Zayed
Cinematographer
Mohamad Elhadidi
Editor
Sara Abdallah
Producer
Mayye Zayed
Co-Producer
Anke Petersen, Anna Bolster
Sound
Samir Nabil, Kristoffer Salting, Brian Dyrby
Score
Marian Mentrup
Broadcaster
Eva Klöcker, Claudia Tronnier
Funder
The Getty Images ARRAY Grant, Arab Fund For Arts & Culture (AFAC), HotDocs - Blue Ice Group Documentary Fund, International Media Support (IMS) , The Danish-Arab Partnership Programme The Danish Egyptian Dialogue Initiative (DEDI)
Winner of: Golden Dove (German Competition)
German Competition 2021
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Los cuatro vientos
Anna-Sophia Richard
A region in the Dominican Republic lives on job migration, on money from afar. Impressions of estranged families in search of happiness – in dreamy images.
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Los cuatro vientos

Los cuatro vientos
Anna-Sophia Richard
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
98 minutes
English,
German,
Spanish
Subtitles: 
English

Almost every inhabitant of Fondo Negro has relatives abroad. Since the 1980s, job migration, meaning wages shared with the residents from afar, has been one of the most important sources of income in this region in the southwest of the Dominican Republic. Young women in particular go to Europe or the U.S. to support their families by unskilled labour. In her enchantingly beautiful film, director Anna-Sophia Richard shows how this affects the ones who stay behind.

When she set out on the journey to Europe, she didn’t know what to expect, says one of the seven people portrayed. It was as if she was going on a holiday: a holiday that’s now lasted more than thirty years. Others haven’t seen their families in over fifteen years, their only contact being by phone or video chat. The mayor of Fondo Negro, herself the first job migrant from the region, tries to keep the women in the village. But the pull of jobs elsewhere is powerful. What’s left are separated families, children who grow up without parents and couples who become estranged. Almost in passing, the director shows in colourful, dreamy images how provisional solutions manifest themselves and permanently shape the reality of people’s lives. Happiness is only an eight-hour flight away – and still unattainable.
Kim Busch

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Anna-Sophia Richard
Cinematographer
Jonas Schneider
Editor
Felix Schmerbeck, Anselm Koneffke, David Kuruc
Producer
Gerrit Klein, Adrian Goiginger
Co-Producer
Südwestrundfunk, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
Sound
Claudio Demel
Score
Berend Intelmann
Broadcaster
Marcus Vetter
German Competition 2022
Filmstill Miyama, Kyoto Prefecture
Miyama, Kyoto Prefecture
Rainer Komers
Over three decades, Uwe Walter from Gelsenkirchen has become part of the Japanese village community of Miyama. This moves him at last to say goodbye to the past.
Filmstill Miyama, Kyoto Prefecture

Miyama, Kyoto Prefecture

Miyama, Kyoto Prefecture
Rainer Komers
German Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Germany,
Japan
2022
97 minutes
German,
Japanese
Subtitles: 
English

There’s probably no other citizen of Gelsenkirchen who has ever mastered Nō singing and playing the Shakuhachi flute as authentically as Uwe Walter. He has lived in the mountain village of Miyama north of Kyoto for three decades and emulates the local residents, whether they earn their living on the fields, breeding cattle or hunting. People tend their gardens, repair fences to keep away the macaques and grow their own rice. Uwe has become perfectly Japanese, at one with his environment.

However well-suited his Ruhr area wit makes him as a figure of identification, the camera keeps a respectful distance, more reserved than Uwe himself. Only at one point does it come touchingly close: When he is forced to say goodbye to an essential part of his past in the interest of the village community. But the real subject of this film is not the German with his greyish blonde curls but rather that very community, portrayed by Rainer Komers in bittersweet polyphony. It emerges in the children’s games, the adults’ pursuits and the old people’s tales, in the summer downpours of the rainy season, the white moon over the nocturnal village and the blood-red leaves of autumn.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Rainer Komers
Script
Gregor Bartsch
Cinematographer
Rainer Komers
Editor
Gregor Bartsch
Producer
Rainer Komers
Sound
Uwe Walter, Yuki Morimoto, Michel Klöfkorn, Oscar Stiebitz
Score
Uwe Walter, Yuki Morimoto
World Sales
Joachim Kühn
Broadcaster
Doris Hepp
Key Collaborator
Hiroko Inoue
Nominated for: VER.DI Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
German Competition 2021
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Nasim
Ole Jacobs, Arne Büttner
Sensitive and intimate portrait of an Afghan woman and her family in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos – before and while the camp went up in flames.
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Nasim

Nasim
Ole Jacobs, Arne Büttner
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
120 minutes
Dari,
French,
Greek,
Persian (Farsi)
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing, English

For eight months, Ole Jacobs’s and Arne Büttner’s film team followed the Afghan Nasim and her family in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, where at times 20,000 people had to live in a space designed for less than 3,000 people. This documentary observation shows with great empathy the daily life of the mother of two who time and again manages to deal impressively with the challenges of this unacceptable and extreme situation.

Nasim previously lived with her family in Iran, where she had already endured discrimination. Her marriage is broken; the camera gingerly captures the mute conflicts with her husband – glances tell everything. Nasim suffers from rheumatism and can hardly move her hands, but she finds loving words to explain this – to her own children and others from over the way. For a while, she even fills in for the school teacher who has left: “Today we will be painting …” She herself, however, is denied the understanding she always shows for others: Everyone around her thinks they know better what she needs. When the camp goes up in flames in September 2020, every hope of a better world seems lost. Nasim is left to fend for herself – but perhaps this new disaster is a chance in disguise.
Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ole Jacobs, Arne Büttner
Cinematographer
Arne Büttner
Editor
Janina Herhoffer
Producer
Ray Peter Maletzki, Ayla Güney, Stephan Helmut Beier
Co-Producer
Ole Jacobs, Arne Büttner
Sound
Ole Jacobs, Azadeh Zandieh
Performer
Nasima Tajik
Winner of: DEFA Sponsoring Prize, ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
German Competition 2021
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Dust of Modern Life
Franziska von Stenglin
Liem lives in one of the remote regions of Vietnam and belongs to the ethnic minority of the Sedang. Together with friends he sets out into the jungle, on the trail of his ancestors.
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Dust of Modern Life

Pa va hêng
Franziska von Stenglin
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
France,
Germany
2021
82 minutes
Sedang,
Vietnamese
Subtitles: 
English

Liem belongs to the ethnic minority of the Sedang and lives in a remote region of Vietnam. The observing camera succinctly sketches a daily routine that’s marked more by surviving than by living. With his friends, he prepares for an expedition into the jungle, where the young men want to take time out, continue the tradition of their ancestors, become hunters and gatherers. The more twisting their paths, the deeper the film seems to enter into a different sphere.

We get to know Liem doing everyday activities. Carrying the baby in a sling, he cooks, hangs out the laundry, goes to the field. The giant loudspeakers fixed to the streetlights fill his village with official news and advertising. In his stilt house, Liem prefers to listen to Vietnamese pop music. Soon we feel the rhythm, the unique beat of this life. When Liem and his friends set out in rubber sandals and carrying backpacks, the camera follows close behind, takes their perspective. Shot on Super 16, the film captures the green tones of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, the images develop a mesmerizing depth. The rustling of leaves, the buzzing of insects, birdsong and permanent rain come together in a melodious soundscape. Suddenly time seems to stand still, the separation between screen and auditorium is lifted.
Anke Leweke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Franziska von Stenglin
Cinematographer
Lucie Baudinaud
Editor
Zuniel Kim, Marylou Vergez
Producer
Lucas Tothe, Franziska von Stenglin
Co-Producer
Cinegrell, Umlaut Films
Sound
Christian Wittmoser, Nguyen Ngoc Tân
Score
Thomas Höhl