The DOK Leipzig programme is complete! For the 69th edition, we are presenting a total of 217 films and XR works. As of today, the entire Film Programme and competition lineup — including all screening times and venues — is available on our website. Tickets are now on sale. Browse the programme and buy your tickets:
Browse the programme and buy your tickets
Our Competitions 2026
A total of 76 feature-length and short films, including 30 world premieres, are competing for the Golden and Silver Doves.Seven Golden Doves and two Silver Doves will be awarded to the winning films across the four competitions.
In the International Competition Documentary Film, nine feature-length and 13 short films are competing for the awards. A number of works journey into closed worlds, be it a maternity ward outside Paris or a family’s inner life. One film reimagines the construction of a highway in China, while another depicts the life of a Palestinian Bedouin family in Jordan as high-end villas rise around them. Broader concerns are also at the heart of several works, from climate change and devastating wildfires in Los Angeles to democracy struggles and contemplations in Belarus. The short films zero in on intimate relationships, as well as bureaucratic and political processes.
The International Competition Animated Film presents five feature-length and 19 short films. The lineup spans diverse themes, artistic approaches, and animation techniques, from a hallucinatory Cold War space station to the fantastical realms traversed by a young apprentice to the quiet unravelling of a Japanese boy’s friendship. The short films challenge the status quo and question how we live with each other and with the systems around us.
The German Competition Documentary Film comprises eight feature-length and 12 short films. Several works use the place itself in their filmic explorations, embedding us inside an abandoned hotel in the Bulgarian mountains, which draws in digital nomads and investors, or in a Berlin shelter where people with alcohol addiction can drink. Family ties are a recurring theme, redefining the notions of trauma, care, or art. The camera rolls even at the borders, between life and death – bringing a filmmaker’s unrealised project to being – or between geographies – as a robotic snake cameraencounters migrant farmworkers in Israel and Gaza. The short films explore such themes as memory, LGBTQIA+, and mental health.
The Audience Competition presents ten feature-length films that premiered at major international festivals. They feature diverse themes and tones, from exploring the fates of trees to delving into a family’s unresolved grief to entering the world of a musical genius. Haunting personal chronicles also emerge in the lineup, alongside tender portraits of friendship, disability, and familial bonds. This year, the winner of a Golden Dove for best feature documentary in the Audience Competition will be decided in an online vote.
Learn more about competition lineup in the press release.
