After a great second edition, CEE Animation and DOK Industry team up again for the 3rd edition of Animation Lab DOK Leipzig this year! Apply to this three-day intense workshop if you are a professional producer who is looking to develop their first animated documentary and is eager to explore the international landscape of the animation industry.

Call open 12 May—1 July 2025

Archives and archive research take centre stage at DOK Archive Market. Meet with international archives, join the panel programme, compare experiences and best practices and benefit from one-on-one consultations with archive researchers and producers.

DOK Co-Pro Market is a co-financing and networking event, connecting producers with colleagues to finance new creative documentary projects and granting exclusive access to the multifaceted German and international non-fiction markets.

Call open 12 May—15 July 2025

DOK Exchange XR is DOK Leipzig’s networking and inspiration programme on interactive and immersive storytelling with a focus on XR works and the sustainable development of the international community of XR creators, producers and distributors.

Call open 19 June—14 August

More than 200 outstanding new documentary and animated films of all lengths seeking distribution opportunities available to be viewed by accredited festival programmers and curators, buyers and commissioning editors, sales agents and distributors.

Let’s connect – friends and colleagues are fun! Join us and accredited guests for a drink during the festival week.

Is it your first time at DOK Industry? Trying to find your way in the market? Join one of these sessions for everyone curious about the international landscape: Industry Helpdesk, Industry Toolkit for First Timers, Industry Intros and Industry Connections

Turn your screens off and enjoy our portable discussion, available on almost all major podcast platforms. Listen to season five now.

DOK Preview Germany offers exclusive access to outstanding new German documentary productions. This showcase presents a mix of works-in-progress projects and newly completed films for international circulation.

Call open 17 June – 4 September 2025

A lively presentation of new and promising documentary projects, selected from European training initiatives and partner markets, seeking gap financing opportunities, distribution partners and festival premieres.

This is our short film pitch focusing on the financing and distribution of short documentary, animated documentary, animated film and short series. We look forward to again bringing together short film experts and creative new ideas.

Call open 19 June – 14 August 2025

Monsters open their jaws, coloured dots spring from the depths – the art of animation showed its psychedelic potential early on. In 1832, movement illusions were drawn on discs – today, the phenakistiscope has long been a fixture of club culture. An intoxicating evening of optical-kinetic miracles in eight films and a live set by Sculpture (London).

While we may already agree that festivals are important sites of meaning making, is it time to question whether categorising films as fiction or documentary is an outdated notion?

#DocSafe is a collaborative initiative to raise questions, research answers and create recommendations for the documentary industry on how to make our shared space(s) safer for all. The roundtables at Leipzig will build on discussions from Durban FilmMart around themes of Cultural Safety, Political Safety, Accountability and Restorative Justice, Sexual Harassment and Abuse of Power and Power Dynamics.

The Ex Oriente Film workshop, esteemed project-based training initiative from the Institute of Documentary Film, takes place for the second time in Leipzig. Several masterclasses, lectures and case studies are open to all DOK Industry accredited guests.

Thursday and Friday feature events dedicated to the art and industry of animated films. Get inspired by the masterclass with Isabel Herguera, a talk with producer Jean-François Le Corre and join AG Animationsfilm’s discussion on current trends, and more.

The Generation Africa 2.0 project is an initiative of the South Africa media company STEPS aiming to produce up to 30 films from 21 countries in Africa amplifying the African voice and action in the ongoing climate crisis.

Generation Ukraine is back in Leipzig with six uncompromising projects in rough-cut stage examining Ukrainian reality since the onset of the full-scale invasion.

Discover the international delegations who joined us in 2024!

Born in Algeria and raised in France, Cabrera examines the fractures that characterise life, treating transience and dying, mental and physical illness as natural aspects of human existence. At the same time, her films are always testimonies to her unconditional empathy with the people she portrays.

Translucent colour planes set against porous ink strokes in rich black, idiosyncratic perspectives and expressive animation – this is the signature style that has made Isabel Herguera’s more recent films unmistakeable. Three film programmes and a Masterclass offer insights into her creative practice.

Join events organised by our partners: AG Animationsfilm discusses the trend to longer formats in animation; AG DOK presents their new mentoring initiative and reflects on the use of AI in documentaries; ARD hosts their TopDocs finale and a speed-dating for serial storytellers.

Animation Lab tutor and veteran producer Jean-François Le Corre, will share insights into the work-in-progress of “Suzanne”, the internationally co-produced animated documentary feature by Joëlle Oosterlinck and Anaïs Caura.