Entitled “Kino und Kampf. Latin America between East and West”, this year’s  Retrospective is dedicated to the radical political cinema of Latin America of the 1960s and 70s. The struggle for liberation in countries like Argentina, Brazil and Chile was a recurring theme at politically committed film festivals on both sides of the Wall; numerous analogue prints of films from this era can be found in German archives today. The surprising story of how these films moved back and forth between Leipzig, East Berlin and West Berlin and were thus preserved also forms a focus of the Retrospective. 

The seven programmes include five feature-length and 16 short films from 1958 to 1985. The centrepiece of the Retrospective is formed by films from the so-called “Third Cinema” of Latin America – a radical cinema movement that sprang from the anti-colonial struggles of the Global South and rebelled against social injustice, state repression and cultural heteronomy. These films are supplemented by individual East German productions thematically linked to them. Each of the seven programmes will be followed by film discussions. 

“It was important to me not to just show the obvious titles,” says curator Florian Wüst about the selection of films, “but also to continually create new connections and build in some surprises. To perhaps show audiences things entirely unknown to them – and at the same time allow some people to reconnect with films they’ve already seen”. 

The first programme, “Call for Liberation”, shows two Third Cinema classics that received great international acclaim. In “Now!” (1965), Cuban filmmaker Santiago Álvarez edits together images of racist violence to the rhythm of Lena Horne’s civil rights hymn of the same name. An agit-prop pamphlet for the national liberation of Argentina, “La hora de los hornos” (1968) moved the generation of 1968 like few other films.  

With a total of three programmes, the Retrospective places a particular focus on Chile and thus reflects the considerable attention given to Chilean current events and filmmaking at the time. The programme “All Hands United” shows a touching document of the era in the form of Patricio Guzmán’s “El primer año” (1972), which captures the mood of awakening linked to Salvador Allende and Unidad Popular’s first year in power.  

The military putsch of 11 September 1973 destroyed the hopes linked to the Allende government, but also brought international support to the Chileans fighting for a return to democracy and against the human rights violations of the Pinochet regime. This solidarity and the experiences of Chileans living in exile in East Germany are at the heart of the programmes “Chile Lives” and “Victory and Defeat”. The latter of these will be showing the newly digitised and restored version of “Eine Minute Dunkel macht uns nicht blind” (1976) for the very first time, part of the famous “Chile Cycle” by Walter Heynowski, Gerhard Scheumann and Peter Hellmich and a snapshot of Chile following two years of military dictatorship.  

The close collaboration with Indigenous communities as a documentary practice forms the focus of the programmes “Mother Earth” and “Death of Exploitation”. The programme “Courage of Imperfection” brings together short films from different countries in Latin America and shows how the filmmakers of the Third Cinema knew exactly how to mobilise their audiences despite their restricted material means. 

What’s so special about the films showing as part of the Retrospective is that a large number of them are available in different analogue formats in the archive of the Arsenal Filminstitut and the German Federal Archives. This film material bears witness to the lively, interconnected festival, distribution and archival work being carried out during the 1970s above all. The International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week (today’s DOK Leipzig) became a port of call above all for filmmakers subjected to censorship and persecution in the countries ruled by military dictatorships. Whether in the competition or in comprehensive retrospectives, the militant cinema of Latin America became a recurring part of the festival. In West Berlin, the Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek (today’s Arsenal Filminstitut) and the International Forum of New Cinema they founded at the Berlinale in 1971 offered filmmakers a similar platform.

Yet this commitment to the radical cinema of Latin America in Leipzig, East Berlin, West Berlin or in the context of the West German Short Film Festival Oberhausen didn’t unfold in parallel, but was rather a shared concern. The Retrospective explores how those working in the field in both East and West collaborated without paying heed to the complications of official inner-German relations. Both the State Film Archive of the GDR in East Berlin, which organised the Leipzig retrospectives, and the Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek in West Berlin made copies of analogue film materials, exchanged them with each other through personal networks and archived them. Together, they thus played a role in making sure that these politically endangered films could be preserved and circulated outside of their countries of origin. The Latin American films archived in the State Film Archive of the GDR back then were transferred to the German Federal Archives following 1990.  

Taking place in collaboration with the Arsenal Filminstitut, the German Federal Archives and the DEFA Foundation for the first time, the DOK Leipzig Retrospective shines a light on the special connection between Latin America, Leipzig, East Berlin and West Berlin. At a DOK Talk, representatives of the four institutions will be discussing these historical connections as well as their significance for questions of digitisation and archiving today. The DOK Talk takes place on 28 October 2026 from 15:00 to 16:30 at the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig. 

Further film series for this year’s festival will be presented in the coming weeks.

The full programme, including all screening times, will be available on the DOK Leipzig website from 8 October. Ticket sales will open online on the same day.

This Retrospective is supported by funding from the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany.

Overview of the films in the section: Film Lists 2026 

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