The 64th edition of DOK Leipzig received a total of 38,950 visits to its in-person events and online programmes. The public and accredited professionals attended cinema screenings and in-person events open to the public at eleven different venues 16,957 times. Around 80 percent of the available seats were occupied — a very positive outcome for the first edition of the festival to be held mainly in person in Leipzig since the beginning of the pandemic. The filmgoing public showed a noticeable desire to experience the festival in cinemas again.

The six free screenings at Leipzig Central Station (Osthalle) were filled to capacity with a total of 840 visitors. The extended reality exhibition DOK Neuland at the Museum der bildenden Künste was equally well received. With a total of 676 people, the exhibition area was at full capacity throughout the festival week. Some visitors spent three to four hours engaging with the immersive and interactive works collectively titled “Chaos Is a Condition”.

Festival director Christoph Terhechte sums up the eventful second edition of DOK Leipzig he has overseen: “This year, a genuine festival atmosphere returned. After experiencing last year’s festival without guests, what pleased me most was the opportunity for personal interaction. Filmmakers and attendees have shared this impression. The decision to focus primarily on an in-person festival in Leipzig despite the challenging circumstances proved to be the right one. Nonetheless, lots of people took advantage of the opportunity to attend the festival from afar.”

International filmmakers, industry professionals and audiences in Leipzig were again able to discuss the films in person this year. However, even in 2021, the festival was subject to certain restrictions. At all public events, the “3G” regulation — limiting admission to vaccinated, recovered or tested individuals — and distancing measures were put in place in order to protect against COVID-19. This meant that overall, about half of the seats at the various venues could be made available. Due to these restrictions, the attendance at in-person events was unable to fully compensate for the reduction in online programmes compared to the previous year.

DOK Leipzig’s online programmes in 2021 included video-on-demand content and live streams. For two weeks immediately after the festival, DOK Stream made 71 films from this year’s programme available throughout Germany, including all of the films that had received Golden and Silver Doves. In addition, works from DOK Neuland and videos made of the master classes and panel discussions were available to watch online. Viewers in Germany and international accredited professionals used the festival’s online services a total of 16,848 times.

A total of 5,145 admissions were counted at the events of the industry platform DOK Industry, which for the first time was held in hybrid form as it hosted numerous parallel events online and at locations in Leipzig. Around 1,400 accredited professionals made use of the opportunities for networking that these hybrid events presented, including around 500 people who were able to participate online from many locations around the world. The offerings included the DOK Co-Pro Market, the rough-cut presentations of DOK Preview, the online video library DOK Film Market, the XR conference DOK Exchange, the “Meet the Experts” forum and a series of podcasts on topics relevant to the industry. The focus on the inclusion of underrepresented groups in the film industry, which commenced in 2020, was maintained this year.

“It was a great pleasure to once again welcome many of the accredited professionals in person and at the same time to enable those who were not able to travel to Leipzig to participate online,” says Nadja Tennstedt, summing up her first edition as the head of DOK Industry. “We’d like to thank everyone who participated for their flexibility and willingness to take part in DOK Industry’s various events. They all contributed to the success of this special edition. Collaboration with our long-time and newly acquired partners is a cornerstone of DOK Industry. This year as well, the team faced lots of new challenges, which each individual mastered with a great deal of professionalism, patience and dedication. I am very grateful for that.”

DOK im Knast and DOK Bildung were once again part of the DOK Leipzig programme. The youth editorial team DOK Spotters reported on films and filmmakers in contemporary media. An accessible film programme made it possible for people with disabilities to attend the festival.

In total, some 170 films and XR works from 55 countries were shown during the 64th edition of DOK Leipzig. The festival was held at locations in Leipzig from 25 to 31 October, and was then continued in the online programme of DOK Stream from 1 to 14 November.

The award-winning films of the 64th edition of DOK Leipzig have been chosen. The gala award ceremony for the Golden and Silver Doves was held on Saturday evening before a live audience at Leipzig’s CineStar.

The Chinese documentary “Father” by Wei Deng has won the Golden Dove in the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film. The director’s first feature film is a portrait of generations about his father and grandfather that depicts tradition and change in Chinese society. “Sincere, poignant and haunting – the narrative goes beyond what is visible to the eye. It shows the complexity of life and becomes a pure homage to humanity,” the jury’s statement reads. The Golden Dove, which includes 10,000 euros, has been sponsored by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk since 2013. The award was presented by Dr Ulrich Brochhagen, head of MDR’s department of history, documentaries and eastern Europe. The film that earns the Golden Dove in the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film qualifies for nomination for the annual ACADEMY AWARDS®, provided it meets the Academy’s standards.

The Silver Dove for the best long documentary or animated film by an emerging director in the International Competition went to Karol Pałka for his first feature-length film, “Bucolic”. This Polish documentary observes a mother and her daughter in their secluded life in the countryside. The jury was impressed by the director’s “fresh and innovative cinematic approach” and highlighted the “sensitive depiction of characters” in the film. “It moves effortlessly around a magical universe with the utmost delicacy and modesty,” said the jury. The 6,000-euro award was sponsored by 3sat.

The winning long documentaries in the International Competition were selected by Grit Lemke, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Alex Szalat, Katarína Tomková and Raed Yassin. Honourable mentions by the jury went to the documentary “Republic of Silence” by Diana El Jeiroudi as well as to Sarah Noa Bozenhardt and Daniel Abate Tilahun for “among us women”.

In the German Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film, “A Sound of My Own” by Rebecca Zehr was awarded the Golden Dove. This documentary accompanies musician Marja Burchard, who followed in her father’s footsteps and became the bandleader of the legendary Krautrock collective Embryo. She carries on her father’s tradition while seeking her own musical path in a male-dominated industry. “Different materialities and fragments lightly and playfully come together in a composition in which the montage is aware of the specific temporality of cinema,” say jury members Carsten Möller, Gudrun Sommer and Maria Speth. “On the visual as well as the sound level, this extraordinary portrait of an artist is convincing in the way the art of music and the art of documentary film meet.” The 10,000-euro award was sponsored in part by Weltkino Filmverleih GmbH. David Forcht form Weltkino Filmverleih presented the Golden Dove to the filmmaker at the award ceremony.

The Golden Dove in the Competition for the Audience Award Long Documentary and Animated Film, which includes 3,000 euros, was awarded by the audience jury to Nikola Ilić and Corina Schwingruber Ilić for “Dida”. At the centre of the film is the filmmaker’s mother, Dida, who, due to a learning disability, has always been dependent on her mother, but longs for independence. A look at a family in transition. “The film raises various questions: Who is the child, who the adult? How can one live autonomously, how can one take responsibility for a person in need of help? But above all, the film radiates warmth, humour and great joy,” the jury’s statement reads.

In the International Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film, Gugi Gumilang, Marina Kožul and Izabela Plucińska chose the recipients of the Golden Doves, each endowed with 3,000 euros. The award for best documentary film went to “Abyssal” by Alejandro Alonso, the documentary observation of a ship scrapyard in western Cuba. The award for best animated film went to Marta Pajek for “Impossible Figures and Other Stories I”, a complex exploration of transience, life and death. These winning films also qualify for nomination for the annual ACADEMY AWARDS®, provided they meet the Academy’s standards. The Indonesian production “Tellurian Drama” by Riar Rizaldi received an honourable mention.

The Silver Dove in the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film, which includes 1,500 euros in prize money, went to Tang Han for her documentary “Pink Mao”, an analysis of the 100-yuan note, the largest denomination of Renminbi banknotes in the People’s Republic of China. Honourable mention went to “Happytrail” by Jakob Werner, Thea Sparmeier and Pauline Cremer, an animated short film about female body hair.

The Silver Dove in the Competition for the Audience Award Short Documentary and Animated Film was awarded to Diana Cam Van Nguyen for her animated film “Love, Dad”, in which a young woman comes across a letter her father had written from prison 15 years prior. The award, which includes 1,500 euros, was sponsored by the Leipziger Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Filmkunst e.V. Deputy Chairman Jens Kesseler presented the Silver Dove to the filmmaker.

Partnership Awards for documentary and animated films in competition

On Saturday afternoon, numerous partner awards were already being presented at the Regina Palast.

The DEFA Sponsoring Prize, which includes 4,000 euros granted by the DEFA Foundation, went to “Nasim” by Ole Jacobs and Arne Büttner, a portrait of an Afghan woman and her family in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Jakob Krese and Danilo do Carmo received an honourable mention for “What Remains on the Way”.

The ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, which includes 2,500 euros, was also awarded to “Nasim”.

The 3,000-euro MDR Film Prize for an outstanding eastern European documentary film was awarded to the Polish production “The Balcony Movie” by Paweł Łoziński, who, for two years, set up a camera on his balcony and struck up conversations with the passers-by.

The Film Prize Leipziger Ring honours a documentary film about human rights, democracy or civil engagement, is granted by Stiftung Friedliche Revolution (Foundation of the Peaceful Revolution) and comes with 2,500 euros in prize money. This year’s award went to Rami Farah and Signe Byrge Sørensen for “Our Memory Belongs to Us”, in which Syrian activists now in Paris use video clips to recapitulate their experiences fighting in the Syrian civil war.

The Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize was awarded to the documentary film “Republic of Silence” by Diana El Jeiroudi, whose complex montage encompasses the disintegration of Syria and life in exile in Germany. The award comes with 2,000 euros in prize money, licensing, and subtitling in eight languages.

The 2,000-euro Young Eyes Film Award, granted by Leipziger Stadtbau AG, went to Johanna Seggelke for her coming-of-age story “Reality Must Be Addressed”. The prize was awarded by the Youth Jury in cooperation with Filmschule Leipzig e.V.

The 1,750-euro Prize of the Interreligious Jury was awarded to Cléo Cohen for her film “May God Be with You”, an attempt to reconcile her Arab and Jewish selves by posing questions to her grandparents. The award is granted by the Interreligiöser Runder Tisch Leipzig, the Oratorium zu Leipzig and VCH-Hotels Deutschland GmbH – im Verband Christlicher Hoteliers e.V., including Hotel MICHAELIS Leipzig.

The Prize of the International Film Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) has gone to “Words of Negroes”. In this film, Sylvaine Dampierre has the workers of an old sugar refinery read passages from the transcripts of an 1842 court case, in which slaves testified against their violent master.

The mephisto 97.6 Award went to Mahboobeh Kalaee for the animated Iranian film “The Fourth Wall”, in which a stuttering boy transforms an Iranian kitchen into a fantastic cosmos.

The Gedanken-Aufschluss Prize went to “The Crossing” by Florence Miailhe. The prize was awarded by a jury of prisoners of the Juvenile Detention Centre Regis-Breitingen.

Awards presented as part of DOK Industry

As part of the industry platform DOK Industry, five awards were presented during the festival week.

Awarded in the DOK Co-Pro Market:

Culture and Tourism Division of the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism (along with 5,000 euros): “Broken Flower” by Sarvnaz Alambeigi (Iran)
The prize is donated by: State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts

Current Time TV Award (along with 1,500 euros): “Cadillac Dreams” by Elene Mikaberidze (Georgia, France)
The prize is donated by: Current Time TV

The EWA Diverse Voices Award (along with 1,000 euros and a year-long mentorship by DOK Leipzig): “The Woman Who Poked the Leopard” by Patience Nitumwesiga (Uganda)
The prize is donated by: EWA – European Women’s Audiovisual Network

Presented at DOK Preview Germany:

D-Facto Motion Works-in-Progress Prize (post-production grant of 10,000 euros): “President’s Tailor – From Auschwitz to the White House” by Rick Minnich (Germany, USA)
The prize is donated by: D-Facto Motion GmbH

Presented for the first time at DOK Short n’ Sweet:

Square Eyes Festival Consultation Award (along with a festival strategy consultation by Square Eyes): “Me & Her” by Eldar Basmanov & Ahmed Fouad Ragab (Estonia, Russia, Egypt)
The prize is donated by: Square Eyes

A total of around 170 films and extended reality works were shown in the Leipzig venues during the week of the festival.

After the festival, a selection of the films can also be viewed online throughout Germany in the DOK Stream from 1 to 14 November 2021, including all of the films that have received a Golden or Silver Dove.

You’ll find details about the award-winning films here: Programme & Tickets

All of the jury statements and awards, including honourable mentions, can be found in the PDF of this press release.

DOK Leipzig opened on Monday, 25 October with the international premiere of The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea in front of an audience of about 700 at the CineStar theatre.

Festival Director Christoph Terhechte introduced the crowd to the film’s director Offer Avnon, who was on hand at the event. As an Israeli and the son of a Holocaust survivor, Avnon’s work explores his impressions of Germany and his changed perspective upon returning to his hometown of Haifa.

Presenter Julia Weigl and Christoph Terhechte led the event together.

Speakers included Dr Skadi Jennicke, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Arts of the City of Leipzig, and Sebastian Hecht, Head of the Culture and Tourism Division at the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism (SMWK).

"For the city of Leipzig, the International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film is an irreplaceable highlight within the cultural landscape," said Dr Jennicke in her opening address. "It offers space to examine current political topics around the world and have shared encounters. I am all the more pleased that DOK Leipzig is returning to the city’s cinemas this year along with international guests, sending a strong signal for present and future cinema culture.”

Festival Director Terhechte thanked Dr Jennicke for her many years of continued support, especially during the pandemic, which continues to pose special challenges for cultural institutions and festivals.

Sebastian Hecht lauded the festival’s contribution to public discourse: "With this year's accompanying programme, DOK Leipzig is also creating a space for debate and engagement with art and cinematic narratives from around the world. By looking at other continents and grappling with political issues, the festival broadens our horizons and keeps us thinking."

Mr Hecht then presented the Saxon Award for the Best Documentary Project by a Female Director, which comes with a 5,000-euro prize. The award went to Iranian filmmaker Sarvnaz Alambeigi for her project Broken Flower. The SMWK sponsors the prize, for which projects by female directors selected for the DOK Co-Pro Market are eligible.

In Broken Flower, Alambeigi will portray a young woman from Afghanistan who wants to become a Muay Thai athlete despite resistance from her patriarchal father. Jury members Fatima Abdollahyan and Natalia Imaz, who chose the winner in the run-up to the festival, said of the project: "We want to honour a filmmaker who is committed to her work and passionate about putting herself out there. Her multi-layered project already promises a strong film that combines a highly topical subject with a personal story.”

Festival Director Terhechte thanked Barbara Klepsch, the State Minister for Culture and Tourism, along with the SMWK and its division leader Sebastion Hecht for their commitment to this prize: "Access to the profession of directing is still significantly more difficult for women than for men worldwide. In this respect, the SMWK prize sends an important signal that aligns with DOK Leipzig's policy of aiming for gender parity in the competitions."

Terhechte then presented the Silver Dove to Dutch filmmaker Vincent Monnikendam for the film Mother Dao, the Turtlelike, which was awarded the prize in 1995. The statuette somehow never reached the director by post at that time, but 26 years later the honour was bestowed on location in Leipzig. The film can be seen in the Re-Visions series, in which DOK Leipzig looks back on its own festival history from a contemporary perspective. 

Parallel to the opening event at CineStar 8, The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea was shown at Leipzig Central Station (Osthalle). Both the film’s director Offer Avnon and Festival Director Christoph Terhechte also spoke about the film before to the screening.

Already on the evening prior (24 October), a work from this year's programme made an early debut: the video installation “Hey You!” by US film artist Shelly Silver. Sponsored by the US Consulate General Leipzig, it will be projected onto the exterior façade of the Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) daily from 5 to 10 pm during the festival week.

DOK Leipzig will present a total of some 170 films and XR works from 55 countries, including 37 world and 13 international premieres, at nine different venues in Leipzig. Included for the first time is the Regina Palast in eastern Leipzig. This year DOK Leipzig will once again present some of the films free of admission at Leipzig Central Station (Osthalle) and the Polnisches Institut.

The Golden Doves and other awards will be presented at two Festival Awards Ceremonies on Saturday, 30 October.

At all public events during the festival, the “3G” regulation for protection against COVID-19 will apply. Patrons aged 12 and over will need to show proof that they have been vaccinated or have recovered from the virus. Alternatively, admission will be possible with a negative test taken the same day at an official testing centre (no self-testing). Exceptions are the opening event at CineStar and the screenings at the Polnisches Institut, to which only vaccinated and recovered persons will be allowed entry. A nose and mouth covering must be worn at all venues prior to taking one’s seat.

Find more information on the festival programme here: DOK Leipzig 2021

DOK Leipzig continues to receive generous funding this year. The main sponsor is the city of Leipzig, which is also the proprietor of Leipziger Dok-Filmwochen GmbH. The Free State of Saxony has also been a major sponsor of DOK Leipzig for many years. In addition, the Saxon Ministry of Science, Culture and Tourism allocates project funds for for programmes of inclusion in order to facilitate the participation of everyone interested in film. This measure is co-financed by tax revenue according to the budget adopted by the Saxon State Parliament. The EU program Creative Europe Media, the Central German Media Fund and the German government’s Commissioner for Culture and Media, who has also been supporting the cultural and creative industries since summer 2020 with an emergency and recovery aid package called NEUSTART KULTUR, are also providing crucial support to the festival and its events and activities for the film industry.

Thanks to the generous support of the US Consulate General Leipzig, US filmmaker Shelly Silver was able to complete her project called “Hey You!”. Silver’s film Girls/Museum was in the International Competition in 2020. During the festival week from Oct. 25 to Oct. 31, her new video installation will be projected on to the façade of the Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) every day from 5 to 10 p.m. In written sentence fragments, the personified museum will speak to its audience. Sometimes seductive, sometimes inviting, provocative, warning, asking — a figure that knows it must change, but is not quite ready to do so.

On the evening of Oct. 24, starting at 6 p.m., persons accredited for the festival are invited to the ceremonial opening of the installation.

At this year’s edition of DOK Leipzig, a total of 63,250 euros in prize money will be awarded. In addition, there are non-cash benefits worth 10,000 euros that filmmakers will be able to use in developing their films.

A long-time award sponsor at DOK Leipzig is Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, which since 2013 has been sponsoring the 10,000-euro Golden Dove for the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film. MDR is also the exclusive media partner for radio and TV.

3sat is sponsoring the Silver Dove in conjunction with 6,000 euros for the best feature-length documentary or animated film by an up-and-coming director. 3sat has been broadcasting documentary auteur films and supporting their production since 1993. By sponsoring this award for young directors at DOK Leipzig, 3sat is reaffirming its commitment to talented international directors.

The film distributor Weltkino is once again the award sponsor for the German Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film. Weltkino has been a valuable addition to the German cinema scene for more than six years. This independent distributor places particular importance on high-quality film art. For this reason, Weltkino is donating a share of 7,000 euros to the Golden Dove, which is endowed with 10,000 euros, in the German Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film.

The Friends of DOK Leipzig are once again among the award sponsors. The Leipziger Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Filmkunst e. V. is sponsoring the Silver Dove, worth 1,500 euros, for the Competition for the Audience Award Short Documentary and Animated Film.

DOK Leipzig also presents numerous awards of partner organisations. A total of 23 awards will be presented at DOK Leipzig. Festival director Christoph Terhechte would like to thank all of DOK Leipzig’s partners and sponsors: “We’re fortunate that our partners and sponsors are renewing their generous support for us in this year, which marks our return to the cinemas and to an in-person festival. For this, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.”

Five of the awards are presented at DOK Industry to promote film projects. The award of the European Women’s Audiovisual Network honours a project by a female director in the DOK Co-Pro Market which tells a story from a point of view thus far marginalized and underrepresented in the world of film. The Saxon Award for the Best Documentary Project by a Female Director and the Current Time TV Award for a project from central or eastern Europe also honour projects at the DOK Co-Pro Market. The DFM Works-in-Progress Award, sponsored by D-Facto Motion, will again be awarded during the DOK Preview Germany presentation of rough cuts. In the short film pitch DOK Short n’ Sweet, the Square Eyes Festival Consultation Award, sponsored by the Dutch distributor Square Eyes, will for the first time be presented to a short film project.

In addition, the festival relies on the commitment of a large number of other patrons, sponsors and partners who help to make the festival’s offerings possible.

PŸUR is providing technical support for the festival as a premium partner. The company is providing Wi-Fi at festival venues and is assisting in the streaming of events at the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig.

Big Cinema is again assisting the festival this year in processes of digitalisation and cinema playout and is handling the technical and organisational aspects of the film screenings at Leipzig Central Station (Osthalle). ECE Marketplaces are also facilitating the free film screenings there.

DOK Leipzig enjoys strong visibility around the city thanks to its collaboration with partnering regional printer MaXx Print.

The Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony also support the festival, and ZDF has also generously supported DOK Leipzig for years.

The SLM (Saxon State Agency for Private Broadcasting and New Media), again a collaborative partner, is sponsoring the festival’s numerous offerings for young talent. These include the award for up-and-coming filmmakers in the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film, the master classes, the DOK Spotters, the school screenings and DOK Neuland.

DOK Neuland has also been supported by ARTE since its inception. Using new digital technologies for innovative storytelling is a major objective of the European culture channel. MDR Media, the US Consulate General Leipzig, Sennheiser and HTC Vive also offer financial support for DOK Neuland.

Further partners support DOK Leipzig with financial and non-cash contributions and are thus instrumental to its success. The infobox in the market square is made possible by modulbox mo systeme. For years, loyal partners of DOK Leipzig have also included Computer Leipzig, 3sat and ver.di Filmunion.

The festival is also pleased to have numerous collaborative partners on the content level.

DOK Leipzig will show around 170 films and extended reality works from all over the world from 25 to 31 October this year. The festival will open on 25 October with the world premiere of The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea, a documentary by Offer Avnon. The festival centre is located in the Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) Leipzig.

An overview of the awards and juries at DOK Leipzig can be found here: Awards & Juries

Supporters of the festival are listed here: Partners & Sponsors

For the seventh time, the DOK Neuland experience will be part of DOK Leipzig. From 26 to 31 October, a total of ten works produced in 15 countries will be presented at the Museum of Fine Arts (MdbK), including four 360° films and six VR experiences. Based on the observation that the pandemic has upset the usual expectation of control and order everywhere in the world, this exhibition raises the question of what potential lies within chaos.

“Last year, we observed a heightened longing for clarity and the ability to control things,” say curators Lars Rummel and Marie Hinkelmann, “but the world is constantly changing anyway. So we realised that the apparent normality that people are longing for is the greatest illusion of our existence.”

The climate crisis, the shifting of many aspects of life into the digital realm, the relationships that have changed between man, machine and nature in posthumanism and the inequality in global living conditions demand a lot from humanity: that’s the thesis of the exhibition. Some things seem uncontrollable and unpredictable, but without chaos, it would not be possible to notice the opposite, namely the convenience of order. “We don’t want to deny any realities or look away, yet every dystopia can be turned into a utopia. Because where uncertain circumstances prevail, there is also the potential for new creative energies and the emergence of resilience,” Lars Rummel continues. “We have therefore selected works that refer to the unknown and the unplanned. In doing so, however, we are not trying to tame chaos. Rather, using the slogan ‘No chaos, no change’, we seek to embrace it and see it as an opportunity for developing new strategies for engaging with the world.”

In collaboration with the artist Paula Gehrmann, a scenography has been created that turns the exhibition space into an experiential place where visitors can examine their individual relationship to chaos.

The exhibition consists of three parts. In the first, which can be summarised under the title “Present Chaos”, three 360° films present an assessment of the way things are now. Revelation 360 by Reed O’Beirne ponders what the digital realm in which we operate actually is. We are challenged to use our imagination to see more than is shown. Reeducated reconstructs through animation the memories of three men who endured political indoctrination and torture in a re-education camp in the Xinjiang region of China. The essay film Handwritten presents a collage of how the pandemic has altered human relationships and brought people’s everyday lives into the digital realm and at the same time into a state of loneliness.

In the second part, entitled “Transformation”, the VR work Infomorph confronts the audience with an artificial intelligence designed to facilitate the transition to the digital realm. Text, image and sound generated by algorithms usher in a speculative scenario in which an analogue world is neither possible nor necessary. Based on the dystopia that the devastated Earth no longer offers any living space, the VR work Samsara takes the audience into outer space. But there, time is only an illusion, people’s consciousness becomes a collective experience, their DNA is moulded into new life forms and a cycle of endless reincarnation begins. They Dream in My Bones (Insemnopedy II) also deals with the imprinting of humans by their DNA. The 360° film tells the story of a fictional researcher who tries to extract dreams from a skeleton and in the process questions the conventional notions of gender and identity.

The third category, “Beyond Chaos”, contributes a further narrative. In these four works, hierarchies are inverted and light is shed on processes of transformation. The multiplayer VR experience Atomu invites us to witness a ritual of the Kikuyu community in Kenya, in which a man can become a woman and a woman a man. In the process, it follows a genderless person in search of the most genuine version of themselves. The VR work Kykeon was also inspired by ritual practices. Here, dance and VR technology are combined to explore the meaningful potential that ancient rites of different cultures may have for future societies. Hush takes the audience on a meditative journey into Norse mythology. As the world dissolves, the VR experience takes visitors underwater to a lost universe. Finally, Tangible Utopias: Urban Futurism makes fantastical and imaginative living spaces accessible. It creates a walkable urban utopia based on the imagination of 250 children.

The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 12 noon to 6 pm and on Wednesday until 8 pm. Admission is free. Furthermore, on Tuesday and from Thursday to Sunday between 10 am and 12 noon, accredited professionals will have an additional opportunity to visit DOK Neuland. MdbK’s rules of admission apply. It is not necessary to book a time slot this year. Admission is via the museum entrance.

DOK Neuland has been supported by ARTE since its first edition. The European culture channel is committed to using new digital technologies for innovative storytelling. DOK Neuland is supported by MDR Media. DOK Neuland is part of the DOK young talent programme and is carried out in cooperation with SLM, the Saxon State Authority for Commercial Broadcasting and New Media. As in previous years, the premises are being made available by MdbK. DOK Leipzig also thanks the US Consulate in Leipzig for its support and Sennheiser for the headphones. This year, DOK Neuland is supported by HTC Vive. From 26 October to 14 November, the VR experiences will be available via the online Viveport platform from anywhere in the world from the comfort of your own home, using your own headset.

Please find the selection of Extended Reality works here: DOK Neuland 2021

You can find the DOK Neuland trailer here: DOK Neuland Trailer

The films in the International Competitions have been finalised, as have the films of the Camera Lucida section, which presents unconventional entries out of competition. The DOK Leipzig film programme is now complete.

The International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film convenes numerous new voices from the documentary field who have a distinctly artistic style. Of the 14 films, 12 will be having their world or international premiere at DOK Leipzig.

In Words of Negroes, Sylvaine Dampierre juxtaposes footage of the day-to-day work in a sugar refinery in her native Guadeloupe with a re-enactment of nearly two-hundred-year-old testimonies of slaves against their brutal master. For KRAI, his first feature-length film, Aleksey Lapin returns to his village in Ukraine and generates an endearing, semi-fictional and absurdist portrait of the place. With a curious eye, Chivas DeVinck turns his attention to a different region: the Nevada desert. The Great Basin captures a microcosm that reveals the economic, social and ecological marginalisation of the rural United States. A remote area is the focus of Veins of the Amazon. Peruvian directors Álvaro and Diego Sarmiento and Finnish anthropologist Terje Toomistu observe what happens on a cargo ship on the Amazon which brings passengers and goods to isolated communities in the Peruvian rainforest.

Numerous filmmakers will be presenting their first works in Leipzig, among them French filmmaker Cléo Cohen, whose first feature-length film, May God Be with You, focuses on her own identity. In an attempt to reconcile her Arab and Jewish selves, she charmingly poses questions to her grandparents, who emigrated from the Maghreb to France. In A Custom of the Sea, Fabrizio Polpettini tells not only of Muslim pirates who plagued the Mediterranean Sea, enslaving Europeans, until the 19th century, but also of Eurocentrism, colonial history and conflicts between Christian and Islamic countries. In her debut film, Water Has No Borders, Maradia Tsaava looks at a dam in Georgia that forms the border with the independent region of Abkhazia. Time and again, the film crew is denied entry into Abkhazia. The result is a reflection on man-made territorial borders.

The films in the International Competition include some of the latest works by well-known filmmakers. In Conversations with Siro, Lebanese filmmaker Dima El-Horr gives cinematic form to a friendly relationship with an artist from her native Beirut, which also prompts reflections on her life in exile in France. In A Bay, Murilo Salles explores the bay of Rio de Janeiro visually and acoustically in eight cinematic fables. With this film, the renowned Brazilian filmmaker returns to Leipzig; in 1978 he was awarded a Silver Dove for his first feature film, These Are the Weapons. Sarah Noa Bozenhardt has also previously had works screened at DOK Leipzig. She presented this year’s competition entry among us women, co-directed with Daniel Abate Tilahun, at DOK Preview Germany in 2020. This film observes a young pregnant woman, her midwife and medical staff in rural, patriarchal Ethiopia, where traditional midwifery clashes with medical obstetrics. Diana El Jeiroudi, co-founder of the DOX BOX initiative to promote Arab-African documentary filmmakers, will be taking part in the competition with her autobiographical debut feature Republic of Silence.

Also taking part in the feature-film competition is Chinese director Wei Deng, whose film Father about his grandfather and father presents a portrait of a generation and tells of tradition and change in Chinese society. Bucolic by Karol Pałka observes a mother and her daughter in their secluded life in the Polish countryside.

Two films in the International Competitions which will have their world premiere at DOK Leipzig were made as part of STEPS’ Generation Africa project, which works with emerging African directors and producers to create films with new narratives about migration – from the perspective of young people from Africa, whose voices are too often absent from global discourse. In Fati’s Choice, Fatimah Dadzie tells the story of a woman who, after a perilous journey to Italy, chooses to return to Ghana, for which she’s criticized in her home country. In the short film Stay Up by Aïssata Ouarma from Burkina Faso, the protagonist uses dance in an attempt to overcome her traumas caused by multiple instances of sexual abuse.

The International Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film includes 24 works that, through their multifaceted aesthetic approaches, touch on such themes as utopia and dystopia – as in The Congress by Clément Villiers – or on attempts to discover the truth, as in Saint Marietta by Ben Young. Emotions that are hard to grasp are given an artistic treatment, as in Akane Murata’s Open One’s Mouth and in Everyday Is Like Sunday by Alberto Dexeus. The problematic nature of political systems is also dealt with, as in Kelasi by Congolese visual artist Fransix Tenda Lomba.

The feature-length films in the International Competition are nominated for a Golden Dove and a Silver Dove for the best film by an up-and-coming director. This year, the winning films will be selected by filmmaker, publicist and curator Grit Lemke, who has been with DOK Leipzig for years, most recently as programme director until 2017. Also on the jury are director and producer Anocha Suwichakornpong, producer Katarína Tomková, and Alex Szalat, head of Docs Up Funds which support documentaries dedicated to human rights, as well as artist and musician Raed Yassin.

The jury for the International Short Film Competition is comprised of film artist Izabela Plucińska, who in 2021 will present her animated short 98 kg in the competition for the Audience Award; Marina Kožul, a curator and expert on animated and experimental film; and Gugi Gumilang, executive director of the non-profit organisation In-Docs, which promotes activist cinematic positions on social and justice issues. The jury members will select the recipients of the Golden Dove Short Animated Film and the Golden Dove Short Documentary Film.

The award-winning films will be announced on 30 October at the presentation of the Golden and Silver Doves at CineStar.

Five films not in competition that challenge the conventions of cinema will be shown in the Camera Lucida section. In grainy black and white, Payal Kapadia’s A Night of Knowing Nothing poetically tells of political protests that originated at an Indian film school. Miko Revereza and Carolina Fusilier fuse documentary and science fiction in The Still Side, a portrait of an abandoned Mexican island. Arata Mori’s A Million, a journey through an imaginary city shot along the former Silk Road, also blends reality and illusion. In Our Quiet Place by Elitza Gueorguieva, a writer who moved from Belarus to France and began speaking a different language reflects on words, making oneself understood, portrayal and patchy childhood memories. Last but not least, in The Shadow Workers by Annelein Pompe, a dove, always the symbol of the Leipzig festival, tells of a Belgian good-for-nothing and the absurdities of the human condition.

In-person film discussions will be held at cinemas with those filmmakers who are able to travel to Leipzig. As a platform for dialogue, DOK Speaks Up invites filmmakers to participate in moderated discussions that explore topical issues raised by the films currently in competition at the festival. The talk “Deconstructing the Image” examines images, texts and stories from the colonial era and asks whether filmmakers can reimagine the narratives suggested by such footage. In a second talk, titled “Walk a Mile in My Shoes”, directors explore the issue of filming in places and communities to which they themselves do not belong. The third talk, “Elephant on the Wall”, discusses what changes when a camera is present and why the illusion of documentary immediacy is still so often upheld. “Deconstructing the Image” will be shown online as a live stream. The other two discussions will be held at the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum; they be recorded and made available on the DOK Leipzig website during the week of the festival.

A total of some 170 films and XR works from 55 countries, including 37 world and 13 international premieres, will be screened to audiences at nine different venues in Leipzig. Included for the first time is the Regina Palast in Leipzig’s East End. This year, DOK Leipzig will again present some of the films with free admission in the East Wing of the main railway station and at the Polnisches Institut.

At all public events during the festival, the “3G” regulation for protection against COVID-19 will apply. Patrons aged 12 and over will need to show proof that they have been vaccinated or have recovered from the disease. Alternatively, admission will be possible with a negative test taken the same day at an official testing centre (no self-testing). Exceptions are the opening event at CineStar and the screenings at the Polnisches Institut, to which only vaccinated and recovered persons will be allowed entry. A nose and mouth covering must be worn at all venues prior to taking one’s seat.

Immediately after the week of the festival, a selection of this year’s festival films will be available online throughout Germany for two weeks in the DOK Stream.

The Golden Dove in the Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film in combination with €10,000 is sponsored by MDR. The Silver Dove in the Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film in combination with €6,000 is sponsored by 3sat.

The 64th edition of DOK Leipzig will open on 25 October 2021 with the international premiere of The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea, a documentary by Offer Avnon. This film describes the impressions the director had while living in Germany and the way his perspective changed when he returned to Israel. Avnon, the son of a Polish survivor of the Shoah, lived in Germany for ten years. “Never, not for a single day” was he able to forget the Holocaust during that time.

In associative montages of images and conversations with people in Germany, Poland and ultimately in Israel, this film explores persistent traumas, mechanisms of repressing the pain, and attempts at reconciliation. What kind of dialogue is possible between relatives of perpetrators and victims? How does one’s identity or membership in a community mould one’s awareness and perception? With these questions in mind after his return, Avnon also takes a different view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is visibly inscribed in the social space of his home town of Haifa.

“The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea attempts the Sisyphean task of a localization between philo- and anti-Semites, the anxious and the indifferent, those who remember and those who suppress. Not an image or sentence that doesn’t trigger a multitude of associations. The devil is in the detail: This film opens our eyes to this,” Festival Director Christoph Terhechte states in the festival catalogue. “Offer Avnon gives fragmentary answers and each raises new questions. The search for the ‘uncanny’ he began with his film is far from over.”

Director Offer Avnon previously dealt with trauma and remembrance in his film Burden (2015). He studied acting, visual communication and film in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. For ten years, he lived in Cologne, where he took part in theatre, video, photography and street art projects.

With its themes and its dialogue-based approach, the opening film of the 64th edition of the festival allows connections to be drawn to other works in this year’s DOK Leipzig programme. The Retrospective entitled “The Jews of the Others: Divided Germany, Distributed Guilt, Dissected Images” looks at portrayals of Jewishness and treatment of the Shoah in German and German-language film productions.

The Homage to documentary film director Avi Mograbi entitled “Secret Agent Avi” and the film The Good Soldier by Silvina Landsmann in competition for the Audience Award are further productions from Israel in the programme that focus on the Middle East conflict in the past and present.

DOK Leipzig’s opening ceremony will be held at 7 pm on 25 October 2021 at CineStar 8 with director Offer Avnon attending. Additionally, there will be a free public screening of The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea at 8:30 pm at Leipzig Central Station (Osthalle), which the filmmaker and the festival director will also attend.

You’ll find more information about the opening film here: The Rhine Flows to the Mediterranean Sea

For the first time ever, the DOK Industry programme will be in hybrid form. From 25 to 29 October, some 1,800 industry professionals will meet in Leipzig as well as online. Many of the 50 or so industry events are to be held both online and onsite, in order to make it possible to once again mingle in person and at the same time network with industry representatives who are unable to come to Leipzig.

Networking and collaboration are at the heart of DOK Industry. “We aim to provide a platform that allows both on-site and online participants to enter new collaborations, gain further market intelligence and exchange ideas in an open and welcoming environment,” says DOK Industry director Nadja Tennstedt. “In doing so, we aim to strengthen the documentary community and make it easier for emerging talents and equity-seeking professionals to enter the international market.”

In terms of content, the 17th edition of Germany’s leading industry platform for the documentary film sector picks up on the themes of the previous year’s programme and carries them a step further. In autumn 2020, DOK Industry focused on the participation of equity-seeking filmmakers and discussed approaches to breaking down the power structures that permeate the documentary film industry. DOK Industry 2021 will be a time to take stock: Which processes have already been initiated? Which initiatives will strengthen the visibility of underrepresented communities? How can filmmakers of colour, of indigenous origin and from equity-seeking groups be supported and promoted? For the first time, DOK Industry is organising a programme around the use of archive material in documentary film. Some of the events will dive into various aspects such as sourcing, clearing and working with archival footage, while others will promote networking with archival researchers.

At the occasion of the Industry Talk “Generation Africa”, Don Edkins from STEPS in South Africa, Philippe Muller from ARTE and several directors will talk about films from the project of the same name by the non-profit media company STEPS. “Generation Africa” works with emerging African directors and producers to create films with new narratives about migration – from the perspective of young people from Africa, whose voices are too often absent from global discourse. Three films at DOK Leipzig were made as part of “Generation Africa”.

The podcast format, launched in 2020 for the online edition of DOK Industry, will be continued. Seven podcasts will be produced in collaboration with What’s Up with Docs and the Programmers of Color Collective. The podcasts will once again focus on the decolonisation of the film industry. Industry experts will discuss the limited representation of Brown LGBTQ+ stories and engage with the perspective of filmmakers from the Global South on documentaries from the Global North. Further podcasts will discuss the (lack of) access to archives given to filmmakers around the world, as well as obstacles to archival work in areas of conflict. How do wars, conflicts and totalitarian regimes threaten the preservation of archives, history and cultural identities? Hosts include Toni Bell, creator and host of the What’s Up with Docs podcast; Sridhar Rangayan, filmmaker and director of the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival; and Claire Diao, a film critic, distributor (Sudu Connexion) and member of the Directors' Fortnight Selection Committee.

Promoting female filmmakers from equity-seeking groups is also important to the European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA), which is refocussing its award, presented at DOK Leipzig for several years, in this direction. The award honours a project by a female director in the DOK Co-Pro Market which tells a story from a point of view thus far marginalised and underrepresented in the world of film and which treats its protagonists as equals.

Three further awards will be presented at DOK Industry this year. The Saxon Award for the Best Documentary Project by a Female Director and the Current Time TV Award for a project from Central or Eastern Europe also honour projects at the DOK Co-Pro Market. The DFM Work-in-Progress Prize, sponsored by D-Facto Motion, will again be presented at DOK Preview Germany.

DOK Exchange offers an impetus for immersive and interactive storytelling. For the first time, it is organised in cooperation with the community and grant platform Artizen. A live podcast will delve into selected projects that can be experienced at DOK Neuland. The conversation will focus on communal storytelling and appreciative narratives, spirituality and the social aspect of the works presented. The event will be moderated by Brigid O’Shea, co-founder of the Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) and the former director of DOK Industry. At the DOK Exchange Showcase, six interactive projects in the making will be presented to experts from the fields of research, funding, distribution, art and technology. The showcase will be moderated by René Pinnell, founder and designer of Artizen.

The DOK Previews offer a glimpse into the kaleidoscope of creative documentary film. DOK Preview Germany, in cooperation with German Films and AG DOK, presents a mix of work-in-progress, newly completed films and world premieres from the DOK Leipzig competition. DOK Preview Training presents film projects developed in European film workshops and selected in partnering international markets which are looking for festival premieres, gap financing and distribution partners – this year in cooperation with CoPro Israel, DocMontevideo, Docu Rough Cut Boutique, dok.incubator, Durban FilmMart, ESoDoc, Eurodoc and Ex Oriente. Festival representatives, buyers and commissioning editors, sales agents and distributors are once again able to discover all the films in the competitions along with other hand-picked current documentaries thanks to the DOK Film Market online video library and get in touch with filmmakers and rights holders.

At the “Meet the Experts” talks, industry representatives can broaden their knowledge of certain professions and work practices and expand their networks. This year, the focus is on impact producing, alternative distribution models and archival research.

DOK Short n’ Sweet is all about short films. At the pitch, filmmakers can present their short film projects, including documentaries, animadocs and animated films, to prominent editors, distributors, festival representatives and financiers. This year, the experts on the panel include Christine Kecher (Op-Docs, The New York Times), Maike Mia Höhne (Hamburg Short Film Festival), Sydney Neter (SND Films) and Sarah Schlüssel (Berlinale Talents / Berlinale Shorts).

The DOK Partner Presentations are an opportunity to discover new documentaries from certain regions, countries and training programmes which are in search of international partners and ready for international acquisition. The various presentations with moderated round-table feedback offer room for interaction and discussion. For the first time at DOK Industry, participants in EFM’s Doc Toolbox Programme – an EFM initiative that endows documentary filmmakers from equity-seeking groups with market intelligence, business tools and connections – will present their projects that are nearing completion. In the Chiledoc Partner Presentation backed by ProChile, Chilean filmmakers will present their latest projects. Chiledoc promotes the distribution of Chilean productions and represents the Chilean documentary film industry.

Through various networking formats, DOK Industry also offers virtual and in-person opportunities for individual meetings with industry experts, such as those from film festivals, distribution companies, TV and archival research.

The Industry Guide offers a look at DOK Leipzig’s guest list, on the festival website and will continue to grow leading up to the festival.

DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.

You can find more information here: DOK Industry

A total of 20 films from 21 countries have been entered in the Competition for the Audience Award Long Documentary and Animated Film and the Competition for the Audience Award Short Documentary and Animated Film. These include two world premieres and four international premieres. The feature-length films are competing for a Golden Dove, the short films for a Silver Dove.

Many of the films approach current political issues from various angles and in a range of aesthetic styles, such as in the look taken at the organisation “Breaking the Silence” in Israel and Palestine (The Good Soldier) and its polarising role in the Middle East conflict. The plight of refugees is explored from children’s perspectives in the animated film The Crossing and in the animated documentary Flee, the latter a story about a long journey, made in many stages, by one man from Afghanistan to Denmark. In Our Memory Belongs to Us, Syrian activists now in Paris use video clips to recapitulate their experiences fighting in the Syrian civil war. What Remains on the Way addresses a refugee experience outside of Europe in the challenging journey made by a mother of four from Central America towards the border between the United States and Mexico.

Various films focus on personal stories, such as 98 kg, which deals with domestic violence, and the moving animated film There Is Exactly Enough Time by Virgil Widrich, who completed the cinematic flipbook of his son Oskar Salomonowitz after the latter’s death. A family history is also revealed in Love, Dad, in which a young woman comes across a letter her father had written from prison 15 years prior and commits to answering it. In Dida, Nikola Ilić presents a sensitive portrait of his mother, a charming elderly lady from Serbia, co-directed with his wife Corina Schwingruber Ilić, whose All Inclusive was entered in the 2018 International Competition Short Film.

The Competitions for the Audience Award also bring together some films with light-hearted approaches and narrative styles, such as the true-crime story For a Fistful of Fries. In The Cars We Drove into Capitalism, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov take a close look at a passion for cars that were manufactured under the socialist system. The two directors had a film at DOK Leipzig in 2018 with Palace for the People. The seemingly voyeuristic film The Balcony Movie by Paweł Łoziński, whose films have been screened at DOK Leipzig since 2009, inevitably produces moments of comedy. The filmmaker points his camera from a balcony on to the street and interacts with passers-by. Garages, Engines & Men by Claire Simon, who took part in the festival in 2016 with The Graduation, humorously tells of the day-to-day drama in a car-repair shop in rural France.

Fluid Life, a poetic portrait of a woman who converted a cargo ship into a houseboat on the Vltava, deals with life on and in the river. In Shallow Water also takes place on the water. The idyllic image of fishing in the winter landscape of eastern Slovakia is deceptive, as prison inmates eke out their living with it. The Gray Shrimp Report, for its part, finds traces of the Second World War on the seabed off the Belgian coast, where 35,000 tonnes of chemical munitions lie to this day and indirectly end up in delicacies.

A further cinematic exploration of the Earth’s ecosystem and the environment is 0.2 Milligrams of Gold. In the wake of a new gold rush in the forests of Brazil, filmmaker Diego Quinderé de Carvalho compares these forests to their smaller counterparts in Belgium. Based on the observation that animals live out their sexuality free of gender norms, the animated film In Nature looks at the many different types of relationships that develop among fauna.

To Pick a Flower uses photographs to engage with US-American colonial rule in the Philippines. The photographs of the island’s bountiful flora, taken from the perspective of those in power, are simultaneously inscribed with their classification and appropriation as a resource. Madrid, Bad Life looks at the marginalised and recalcitrant in the Spanish capital around 1900 and thus at the social structure encompassing all those who, despite being outsiders, were nevertheless a visible part of everyday life in the city.

This year’s audience jury, which will announce the winners at the award ceremony on 30 October, consists of Lara Hübelt, Pauline Reinhardt, Lisa Marie Rothe, Sarah Schreiner, Paula Schumann, Aviv Sheyn and Alfonso de Toro.

The Silver Dove Short Documentary and Animated Film is granted by the Leipziger Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Filmkunst e.V.

Please find the film selection here: Competitions for the Audience Award DOK Leipzig 2021

In 2021, the films in the German Competitions at DOK Leipzig once again represent a wide variety of cinematic approaches, in terms of both their themes and their formal criteria. The film-makers’ works document current political crises, seek out historical vestiges and sketch introspective portraits.

The selection committee has nominated a total of 15 productions for the German Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film and the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film. Among them are eleven world premieres, one European and three German premieres. Female film-makers are heavily represented in the German Competition, having directed seven of the eight long documentary films nominated.

This year as usual, some of the productions focus on current political issues. Topics include the situation of refugees in Camp Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos (Nasim), the migration factor for families in the Dominican Republic (Los cuatro vientos) and the protests against Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus (Handbook). Some films draw a connection between political and aesthetic discourse, for example in works about female body hair (Happytrail), a socialist monument in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin (Head Fist Flag – Perspectives on the Thälmann Memorial) and the colour of the 100 yuan note (Pink Mao), the largest denomination of Renminbi banknotes in the People’s Republic of China. Historical vestiges, memories and traditions are traced by two other films in present-day Silesia (Time Before Land) and in the jungles of Vietnam (Dust of Modern Life).

Other works in the competitions portray extraordinary individuals and are partly the result of intimate relationships. Two films, for example, deal in very different ways with the documentary images of a past love (Everyman and I and Reality Must Be Addressed). They reflect upon how the camera creates intimacy and distance, play and authenticity in the rapport between the film-maker and those filmed. Two other works focus on soundscapes by portraying a musician (A Sound of My Own) who continues her father’s legendary band project Embryo, and a passionate instrument-maker (75/1).

Some of the directors involved have previously had films screened at DOK Leipzig. Katharina Pethke, for example, returns to Leipzig with Everyman and I, a personal work about and involving actor Philipp Hochmair. In 2011 she had received the Golden Dove in the German Competition for the film Louisa; last year, the director was a guest at DOK Industry, the festival’s industry platform. This time Betina Kuntzsch presents Head Fist Flag – Perspectives on the Thälmann Memorial, after her film Spirit Away was awarded the Golden Dove in the International Competition Animated Documentary in 2015. Other film-makers such as Malte Stein (Flood, German Competition Short Film 2018) and Johanna Seggelke (Bibi Must Go, co-directed with Marie Zrenner, German Competition Short Film 2020) have previously been nominated in Leipzig.

This year’s jury consists of film-maker Maria Speth, festival director Gudrun Sommer and film lecturer and director Carsten Möller. The jurors will jointly determine the winning films of the Golden and Silver Dove in the German Competitions of DOK Leipzig.

The feature and documentary film director Maria Speth had an entry in the German Competition of DOK Leipzig in 2010 with 9 Lives and was awarded the DEFA Sponsoring Prize. In 2021, she received a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for her documentary Mr Bachmann and His Class, which has been showing in cinemas across Germany since 16 September. Gudrun Sommer founded and directs doxs!, the documentary film festival for children and young people in Duisburg. Together with Christian Koch, she was also in charge of the Duisburg Film Week in 2019 and 2020. Carsten Möller is a creative associate in video art at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts. He teaches film editing, screenwriting and cinematography, and also creates his own films and screenplays.

This year’s award-winning films will receive their honours on the Saturday of the festival (30 October 2021). The films in the German Competition are nominated for a Golden Dove, the films in the German Competition Short Film for a Silver Dove.

Certain films have also been nominated for awards sponsored by partners: the DEFA Sponsoring Prize, the Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, the ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, the “Leipziger Ring” Film Prize from the Stiftung Friedliche Revolution, the Young Eyes Film Award and the mephisto 97.6 Award for best animated film.

The Golden Dove in the Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film is granted by Weltkino Filmverleih GmbH.

Please find the film selection here: German Competitions DOK Leipzig 2021

DOK Leipzig’s 2021 film programme will take place entirely in the city’s cinemas, once again placing greater emphasis on film history with the showing of a Retrospective and two Matinees that had to be postponed last year. Meanwhile, film series outside the competitions will explore the interfaces between animation art and music history, focus on outstanding film artists, and offer exciting discoveries for children and young people.

Several programmes deal with the thematic complex of remembrance, reconciliation and commemoration. Planned for 2020 but impossible to realise in the hybrid festival edition, the Retrospective will run this year instead. Under the title ”The Jews of the Others: Divided Germany, Distributed Guilt, Dissected Images“ it spans a historical arc from the National Socialist propaganda film Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet (Theresienstadt: A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area, 1944) to the documentary film Das leere Haus (The Empty House, 2004) about neighbourhood resistance to a Jewish community centre in prosperous Leipzig after the turn of the millennium.

The title of the series refers to attributions of Jewishness and the examination of the Shoah in German and German-language film productions, especially during the years that the country was divided. How did the two new German republics look at the old common guilt? What ideological and social premises shaped this view? These questions arise, for example, in relation to the GDR TV production Aktion J (Operation J, 1961) by Walter Heynowski, about West German Under-Secretary of State Hans Globke’s Nazi past. Continuities of the fascist past are also confronted in the West German short documentary Es muß ein Stück vom Hitler sein (That Must Be a Piece of Hitler, 1963), which features biting commentary by Walter Krüttner about tourism in Hitler’s beloved Obersalzberg region during the post-war period. Guests with (film) historical expertise are invited to all film talks.

“In essence, we are talking about appropriation in relation to historical material, but also to Jewish suffering,” curator Sylvia Görke says. Co-curator Ralph Eue adds: “Harun Farocki once spoke of images that are meant to testify against themselves. This thought has always preoccupied us in the selection and contrapuntal compilation of the films.”

The Retrospective is funded by the The Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany. During the festival week, the series will be complemented by the study presentation "Eichmann and the Cold War on East and West German Television". The Matinee Saxon State Archive will highlight the topic with local film examples of the GDR’s culture of commemorating the National Socialist past.

The Homage of the 64th festival edition is dedicated to renowned Israeli filmmaker Avi Mograbi, who also has a family connection to Leipzig. Mograbi's mother fled from Leipzig to Palestine as a child to escape the Nazis. With Once I Entered a Garden, Z32 and The First 54 Years - An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation, three works will be presented in which Mograbi takes a critical and ironic approach to dealing with Israel's politics in the Middle East conflict. He will also address his form of documentary self-dramatisation in a master class.

Another master class entitled "Editing Makes the Film” will feature the renowned editor Mary Stephen. She will present Nude at Heart, her own edited version of the film Odoriko by Yoichiro Okutani. How do considerably different artistic visions emerge from the same documentary footage? In the juxtaposition of director's cut and editor's cut, Mary Stephen will address the editor’s role between serviceable craft and creative co-authorship.

There was already a foretaste of the DEFA Matinee in honour of Kurt Tetzlaff in 2020. This year, the programme “Kurt Tetzlaff – Reports from the Time of Change” will be realised in cooperation with the DEFA Foundation. A short film and two feature-length films by the director will be shown as a double feature of his last two DEFA productions: Im Durchgang – Protokoll für das Gedächtnis (In Transit: Report for Posterity, 1990) and Im Übergang – Protokoll einer Hoffnung (In Transition: Report on a Hope, 1991). Tetzlaff's work has been shown several times in Leipzig and won a Silver Dove in 1975, though some of the director's films were denied screening at the festival during the GDR era. Nevertheless, DOK Leipzig was always "an encounter with the world" for Tetzlaff, who was a member of the festival committee from 1973 to 1989.

With the Re-Visions series, DOK Leipzig will take another look at its own festival history from a contemporary perspective. The 1995 award-winning archive film Mother Dao, the Turtlelike collages visual and audio documents about Dutch colonial history in Indonesia. The film will be rescreened and director Vincent Monnikendam will be presented with the Silver Dove, which did not reach him by post at the time.

The animation film programme Modular & Modified: Animation and Musique Concrète will be a foray into pop culture, research and sound labs, traveling all the way to the inner worlds of humans and machines. "Together with the audience, we want to rummage with relish in what are probably the most shimmering departments of media history," say André Eckardt and co-curator Cornelia Friederike Müller (aka CFM). "We want to explore how animation and electronic music are related.”

Both art forms have manipulated and developed conventional recording techniques from the beginning: Music and animated images have been looped, deformed, slowed down, sped up, played backwards and forwards, and reassembled. The three Modular & Modified programmes bring together Oscar-winning animated films, cult pop culture phenomena such as the TV series The Shadoks, and musical revolutions by musique concrète composers, as well as Björk, Matmos and Max Cooper. In addition, Leipzig artists Connie Walker aka CFM and SAOU TV will give a live audio-visual concert.

In the Animation Perspectives series, two filmmakers will once again enter an artistic dialogue with their works. Video and photo artists Claudia Larcher and Randa Maroufi are united by their use of subtle, sometimes hidden animation techniques. With virtual camera movements, photo collages or tableaux vivants, they create transitional worlds with an idiosyncratic view of social spaces. In Heim, for example, Larcher explores traces of life in her parents' house. And in The Park, Maroufi freezes the creative poses of young people into semi-living sculptures with a 360° camera view. Both artists have previously been guests at DOK Leipzig. Curated by André Eckardt, the Animation Perspectives series, in its third year, is dedicated to marginal phenomena in animation art.

DOK Leipzig also offers a whole spectrum of animation and documentary works to the youngest film fans. In the Kids DOK series, the festival shows five programmes for audiences aged 5 and up, 8 and up, 10 and up, 12 and up, and 14 and up. "I am thrilled at how seriously children and young people are taken in these contributions," curator Lina Dinkla says. There will be a colourful mix of animated films for preschool-aged children, and documentaries with young protagonists that offer schoolchildren and young people diverse insights into other ways of life.

The Doc Alliance Selection will present the films Gabi, Between Ages 8 and 13 by Engeli Broberg, and Looking for Horses by Stefan Pavlović. Both works were nominated for the 2021 Doc Alliance Awards, which were presented in Cannes on 13 July. The Doc Alliance festival network was founded in 2008 to promote artistic-creative documentary film and its diversity in cooperation with seven renowned documentary film festivals: CPH:DOX Copenhagen, DOK Leipzig, FID Marseille, Doclisboa, Ji.hlava IDFF, Millennium Docs Against Gravity FF and Visions du Réel Nyon.

DOK Leipzig would like to thank the The Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany, the German Broadcast Archive, the Saxon State Archive and the DEFA Foundation for their funding and support of the film series.

Please find the film selection here: Our Film Programmes 2021

On 7 September, the Stiftung Friedliche Revolution announced that 2021 will mark the tenth year that the foundation awards its “Leipziger Ring” prize at DOK Leipzig. The award honours an artistic documentary film "that deals with the subject of democracy in an extraordinary way and motivates people to take on social responsibility and initiate processes of change,” the foundation said. It also often highlights the achievements of filmmakers who have courageously made their films with great personal commitment in the face of opposition and restrictions on free speech and the media.

The "Leipziger Ring" film prize has been awarded annually since 2010 as part of the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (DOK Leipzig), and includes prize money of 2,500 euros. In 2016 and 2020, however, the award had to be suspended.

"We are extremely pleased that the ‘Leipziger Ring’ film award can be continued with the 64th festival edition," festival director Christoph Terhechte said. "With this year's festival, DOK Leipzig returns to the cinemas, and thus to human encounters, exchange and discussion about films and life experiences. The festival sees itself as a piece of lived democracy and therefore also a fitting partner to the Stiftung Friedliche Revolution."

A jury appointed by the foundation's board of directors will choose the winning film from among a selection of nominations by DOK Leipzig, which runs from 25 to 31 October 2021 in film venues across the city. The "Leipziger Ring" prize will be presented at the festival's partner awards ceremony on 30 October at the Regina-Palast.

The award commemorates the many people who peacefully demonstrated in 1989 for democratic reforms in central Leipzig and numerous other places in former East Germany, risking their lives, health and freedom.

The winners of the Doc Alliance Awards have been announced on 13 July at Cannes Docs, the documentary-focused industry programme of the Cannes Film Festival. Doc Alliance is a network consisting of seven of the most influential European documentary film festivals, each of which nominated two films for the awards.

This year’s Doc Alliance Award — Best Feature Film went for the first time to the category nomination by DOK Leipzig: “The Blunder of Love” by Rocco Di Mento, which competed for the Audience Award at the festival in 2020. In his search through family archives, Rocco Di Mento unearths old 8mm home movies, an unpublished novel, various love letters and a whole host of long-suppressed feelings – a mixture that begins to develop a dynamic of its own. The issue becomes not just about the search for the love of one’s life, but also the question of what holds people together beyond their relationship status and degree of kinship.

“’The Blunder of Love’ is simply gripping and ingeniously constructed,” says DOK Leipzig programme coordinator Lina Dinkla about the festival’s selection. “Rocco Di Mento tells his personal family story, but it is also a universal contribution to subjects such as shaky family truths in which almost everyone can find themselves.”

The awards jury also praised the filmmaker’s “charming curiosity that evolves into a genuine deconstruction of myth and a discrete revelation of family secrets and trauma and how it is passed on from generation to generation.”

The Doc Alliance Award – Best Short Film went to Tatiana Chistova for “Bless You!”, which was nominated by Millennium Docs Against Gravity. Against the backdrop of Saint Petersburg’s back courtyards during the Corona lockdown, Chistova fuses recordings of the almost empty city with calls to a municipal hotline, highlighting that in a system that neglects its weakest members, the virus is not the only threat. DOK Leipzig congratulates the filmmaker, who also competed for the Short Film Audience Award at DOK Leipzig with the film in 2020.

The Doc Alliance Award was presented for the first time in 2008. Members of the Doc Alliance network include: CPH:DOX, Doclisboa, Millennium Docs Against Gravity FF, DOK Leipzig, FIDMarseille, Ji.hlava IDFF and Visions du Réel. Each of the festivals have traditionally chosen one feature-length film and, for the first time this year, one short (up to 30 minutes) by an emerging filmmaker from their most recent lineup. The Doc Alliance Award - Best Feature Film and Doc Alliance Award - Best Short Film prizes are endowed with 8,000 EUR for the directors to spend on their next project. Additionally, each of the Doc Alliance festivals has committed to screen at least 3 films among the selections at their upcoming editions.

Simultaneously with the award ceremony on 13 July, the new joint website docalliance.org was launched to highlight the network and its festival members.

“The Blunder of Love” and “Bless You!” will be available on the DAFilms.com platform until 18 July, 2021 along with a selection of the other nominated films.

In a move that sends a positive signal for the resumption of cinema culture in the wake of the pandemic, DOK Leipzig will return to big screens in the fall. First, the complete film programme will air in selected Leipzig venues during the festival week in late October. And afterwards, "DOK Stream" will launch online to serve those who wish to either deepen their festival experience or visit DOK Leipzig wholly online. The virtual film programme will feature a selection of festival films accessible to the German public during the first two weeks of November.

Taking the festival’s evolution a step further, the 17th annual DOK Industry Programme for film professionals will also be the first major German platform of its kind to combine the best of both worlds, taking place in-person and online in 2021.

 "This year's film programme is primarily intended to happen in the cinemas. With this, we are promoting a physical fresh start after a cultural dry spell," festival director Christoph Terhechte says, adding that directors who visit Leipzig will discuss films in person with the audience in the movie theatres. "But unlike in 2020, the online and offline film programme will not take place in parallel, because in 2021 we want to give priority to the cinemas. Nevertheless, we will include the best parts of last year’s hybrid offerings, as we assume that not all directors will be able to travel internationally," Terhechte says. Audiences will once again have the option of viewing recordings of talks and other online formats to whet their appetites for the films. Regarding the additional online film programme available for streaming after the festival week, Terhechte says: "The 'DOK Stream' offering will enable a new, condensed kind of online festival that is based on last year's experience."

In 2021, the number of festival films is expected to rise again to more than 200, though still with a reduced programme in some areas compared to 2019, for both practical and artistic reasons. In addition to the competitions, other curated programmes will be included in the lineup. The Retrospective, for example, which had to be suspended in 2020, will be shown on the big screen once again. "We’re hoping for adjusted hygiene concepts and a further easing of the situation by fall, which will allow a greater utilisation of the cinemas compared to last year," Terhechte says.

Film professionals will be able to take advantage of all the established formats of DOK Industry at the end of October. These include the DOK Co-Pro Market, the short film pitch DOK Short n' Sweet, the rough-cut presentations DOK Preview, the DOK Film Market, the XR conference DOK Exchange, Meet the Experts, and talks. Partner presentations and podcasts will also be in the mix. And almost all formats will be simultaneously hosted both on-site and online. In 2020, DOK Industry Programme took place entirely online.

"With a hybrid offering, we want to facilitate the industry's great desire to meet in person again, while ensuring that everyone can participate regardless of possible travel restrictions or other hurdles," says Nadja Tennstedt, who took on leadership of DOK Industry's offerings this year. "The last 15 months have been marked by huge upheavals for the audiovisual industry. The DOK Industry team is aware of the great challenges facing the international documentary community and wants to promote cooperation and togetherness among all participants with the first hybrid Industry Programme. In doing so, we’ll focus on bringing offline and online participants together in a way that creates enriching and effective meetings that will also be a lot of fun."

The DOK Industry team aims to maintain existing partnerships and establish new ones with a focus on diversity and inclusion. "One of our central concerns is including new groups of participants and making DOK Industry offerings accessible to people from marginalised groups," Nadja Tennstedt says. And with regard to combining the online and offline realms, she adds: "Hybridity is here to stay. We are actively learning along with the documentary community just how important this development is in terms of funding, distribution, sustainability and inclusion. We see the hybrid edition of DOK Industry as an exciting start to sustainable development."

The 64th edition of DOK Leipzig will take place from 25 to 31 October. "DOK Stream" is scheduled to follow from 1 to 14 November.

Starting this month, Nadja Tennstedt will be in charge of DOK Leipzig's industry offerings. She succeeds long-time head Brigid O'Shea.

Active in the film sector for many years, Tennstedt has focused increasingly on documentary and independent film. Most recently she coordinated The DocSalon, the documentary film platform at the Berlinale's European Film Market (EFM), where she led networking and community building activities within the documentary industry.

"We are fortunate to welcome Nadja Tennstedt to our team, an experienced collaborator who is highly regarded by documentary creatives around the world, and who has earned her reputation through passion, imagination and her dedicated advocacy for diversity," festival director Christoph Terhechte says.

Before joining DocSalon, Tennstedt, who studied film production in New York, worked in numerous fields of film distribution. She directed international sales and acquisitions at Milestone Films, and was in charge of marketing at Zeitgeist Films, a distributor of independent features and documentaries. After returning to Europe from the USA, she worked for film festivals such as Locarno and the Berlinale.

 "I participated in DOK Industry as a professional visitor in the past and was enchanted. With a friendly and collaborative atmosphere full of international participants, it offers an efficient industry platform that I believe in,” Tennstedt says. With an eye to the future, she adds: "Changes in the international film industry, which have been greatly accelerated by the pandemic, pose great challenges to the entire documentary community. At the same time, they present opportunities to rethink and change existing models and structures. I am very much looking forward to accompanying and promoting these developments alongside Christoph Terhechte and all of my colleagues to support the doc community. My goal is to constantly develop DOK Industry's offerings and adapt them to changes in the financing, production and distribution of documentaries."

Tennstedt has also recently been involved with DocSalon in rethinking existing structures and developing inclusive models. Together with Themba Bhebhe, head of the EFM Diversity & Inclusion Initiative, she developed the DocSalon Toolbox Programme, which was established to help filmmakers from marginalised groups and the Global South enter the international film market with the help of tailored programmes. In collaboration with archive producer Monika Preischl she introduced Archive Day, Germany's first business platform dedicated to cinematic work with archival material. "Particularly important to me in my work is a focus on the participation by creatives from underrepresented groups and challenging power structures that exist in the documentary industry,” Tennstedt says.

 "I would especially like to thank Brigid O'Shea, who has led DOK Industry for the past ten years and who, together with her team, has made the platform a wonderful place for the doc community," Tennstedt adds.

Brigid O’Shea, the long-time Head of DOK Industry, is leaving DOK Leipzig at the end of February to dedicate herself to new endeavours. As part of the DOK Leipzig team for 11 years, O’Shea has made a lasting impact on the festival's film industry platform. She first joined as the coordinator of industry offerings in 2011, taking over as Head of DOK Industry in 2015.

O'Shea continued the expansion of DOK Industry’s programme internationally and solidified its position as Germany's leading industry platform for documentary film. Her passions were equal participation for all, creating a strong sense of community, and of course the great pleasure of personal exchange and networking between film professionals. O’Shea developed numerous formats for the festival, such as the DOK Preview rough cut presentations and the short film pitch DOK Short n' Sweet. The heart of her work was the DOK Co-Pro Market, which takes place each year as the festival begins with around 900 individual meetings. With each of these programmes, O’Shea was always on the lookout for the best-fitting and most sustainable financing and distribution channels for artistic documentaries.

"We are deeply grateful to Brigid O'Shea for her many years of creative work. She has developed DOK Industry into one of the most important international industry platforms for documentary film and created a place in the festival that is known for its commitment, warm atmosphere and intensive exchange," festival director Christoph Terhechte said. "Her approach has always been the expression of an emancipative festival policy. We see it as our challenge to further develop the programme in this direction."

O'Shea put a great deal of energy into the equal promotion of women directors, and several development awards were launched in this area during her time at DOK Leipzig. Her main goal was to open doors for artists regardless of gender or origin. Promoting underrepresented filmmakers and questioning power structures were imperatives that she pursued wholeheartedly.

“Over the past decade, to grow DOK Industry Programme and make a small contribution to the long history of DOK Leipzig has been an absolute honour and privilege. I want to thank my immediate team and colleagues for their support and hard work. Leaving such a beautiful job was not an easy decision, but I hope I am leaving fertile earth for those who come next,” O’Shea said. “Most of all, I want say thank you to the partners, accredited guests, and of course the amazing projects and films that have been through our markets, meetings and events over the years, of which there are too many to mention. I'll be looking forward to meeting you all in Leipzig for a glass of wine as soon as we can.”

O'Shea will now focus on her work with the Documentary Association of Europe (DAE), of which she is a founding member. Launched in February 2020 as a network for European documentary professionals, it aims to represent their interests within the international film and creative industries, and to strengthen the transfer of knowledge within this community.

DOK Leipzig will announce personnel changes for the DOK Industry section soon. The 64th edition of the festival will take place from 25 to 31 October 2021.

Images of DOK Leipzig and of Brigid O’Shea can be found in our press download area.