The Documentary Film Homage at the 68th edition of DOK Leipzig is dedicated to US filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt. Her works, many of which are essay films shot on 16mm, focus on land(scapes) and objects, as well as signs of the visible effects that political systems have had on them.
Lee Anne Schmitt’s work reveals the historical and ideological divisions in her country, the United States. She addresses such themes as historical injustices, the power of large corporations, respect for the environment, and equality regardless of class or ethnicity. The homage will consist of her four feature-length documentaries and be complemented by four short films.
“Thorough research and intellectual acuity are what distinguish the work of Lee Anne Schmitt,” says curator James Lattimer. “She draws intuitive connections between heterogeneous ideas, lets ambiguities and ambivalences resonate, and allows the audience to draw its own conclusions.”
In Schmitt’s films, the personal is political and the political is deeply personal. The best example of this is her latest film, “Evidence” (2025), which premiered at this year’s Berlinale Forum. In the film, Schmitt takes the Olin Corporation, her father’s employer for many years, to task for harming the environment throughout the country and describes how the company’s own think tank helped shape the ideological foundations and development of the neoconservative movement. Her first full-length film, “California Company Town” (2008), documents former and now abandoned company towns in California that were once built solely for the employees of major industrial sectors. In “The Last Buffalo Hunt” (2011), the filmmaker calmly but keenly observes the hunting of the country’s last remaining buffalo herds, which has continued to this day. “Purge This Land” is about discrimination against people of colour and their resistance to it, viewed through the life story of American abolitionist John Brown (1800–1859). The short films explore the in-between, depict the calmness of nature and the insecurity spread by the pandemic, trace the history of religious artefacts and hint at traumatic experiences.
In a master class "Hommage Lee Anne Schmitt: Gathering Evidence", curator James Lattimer will talk to Lee Anne Schmitt about her work as an artist and the significance of autobiographical and research-based approaches. Further topics will include using techniques of film directing to present an argument and the relationship between landscape and text.
This year, the Animated Film Homage will honour Punto y Raya (PyR) as a festival and international platform positioned where abstract film, animation and new media meet. Punto y Raya (meaning “dot and dash”) contributes significantly to the visibility and exploration of the fringes of these cinematic forms and is dedicated to the fundamental elements that comprise abstract moving images: form, colour, motion and sound. The works shown completely dispense with narrative, characters and dialogue. In its homage to Punto y Raya, DOK Leipzig will for the first time be honouring the work of several individuals, thus also focusing on collective work and community.
“The commitment of the PyR team is inspiring. Over the years, they have fostered a community of filmmakers who make use of very different artistic styles, whose work they make available to the public both at the festival and in one of the most comprehensive online archives of abstract films in the world,” says curator Franka Sachse.
Since its inception in 2007, the festival has been held eight times at various locations in Europe. Punto y Raya also organises a range of educational programmes to get new audiences and artists interested in abstract films, as well as to promote interdisciplinary and collaborative projects.
This year, DOK Leipzig’s Animated Film Homage will consist of three programmes and a master class. “A Best Of Punto y Raya” will showcase works by the award-winners and finalists of the most recent edition of the festival. These include “O/S” (2023) by renowned German video artist Max Hattler, whose “visual soundtrack” took the top award. The films that placed second and third will also be screened. While “Moving Moments (6 Moments, 19 Fragments)” (2023) by Dutch filmmaker Gwendolyn Lootens is a minimalist homage to silent rhythms, “Intersextion” (2022) by Richard Roger Reeves brings humour to the screen without any dialogue.
“Celebrating Women Abstractionists”, consisting of 16 works altogether, focuses on the work of female filmmakers.
In “100 Years of Absolute Film”, DOK Leipzig will commemorate the anniversary of “Der absolute Film”, a cinema matinee that premiered in Berlin in 1925. The third programme of the Animated Film Homage will screen six of the most influential experimental art films of the 1920s, directed by Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Walter Ruttmann, to live music. In addition, on 29 October 2025, the artist duo kinoMANUAL will give a modern twist to Kurt Schwerdtfeger’s “Reflektorische Farblichtspiele” (1922) in a live performance at UT Connewitz. In the days of black-and-white cinema, these colourful projections of light accompanied by music were a novelty; now they are an integral part of film history.
The master class invites the audience to dive into the universe of abstract moving images and get a behind-the-scenes look at the platform. Curator Franka Sachse will talk to Nöel Palazzo (co-director, curator and producer at PyR) and Miguel Pires de Matos (co-producer at PyR / European & local coordinator at the 8th edition of the festival) about the facets of audiovisual art and the work of Punto y Raya. This event will be held in the Propsteikirche St. Trinitatis on 30 October 2025.
Download Film Lists of the described programmes here.
Download Film Stills of further films and portrait of Lee Anne Schmitt: Film Stills
