DOK Leipzig

DOK Leipzig welcomes the juries for its 69th edition, formed by esteemed filmmakers, artists, and industry experts, to celebrate this year’s finest works in documentary and animated film. 

Seven Golden Doves and two Silver Doves will be awarded to films across four competitions on 1 November. 

German and International Competitions

The jury for this year’s International Competition Documentary Film features Raul Niño Zambrano, Ivan Ramljak, and Diana El Jeiroudi. They will award a Golden Dove to the best feature documentary and the best short documentary from the 9 nominated features and 13 nominated short films. A Silver Dove will also be presented to the best feature documentary and the best short documentary by an up-and-coming director.

The jury for the International Competition Animated Film includes Waltraud Grausgruber, Edmunds Jansons, and Matea Radic, who will select the winner of a Golden Dove for best animated feature and best animated short film from the 5 nominated features and 19 nominated shorts.

This year’s jury for the German Competition Documentary Film comprises Stefanie Eckert, David Bernet, and Adele Kohout. They will pick the winners of a Golden Dove for best feature documentary and best short documentary from the 8 nominated features and 12 nominated short films.

Audience Competition

This year, the winner of a Golden Dove for best feature documentary in the Audience Competition will be decided in an online vote.

Read more about our jury members in the press release.

All jury members and awards

Festival director Ola Staszel is introducing a new section called “Fokus Ost”, which will bolster eastern German perspectives in documentary filmmaking. Eight of the total of ten documentaries will have their world premieres at the 69th edition of the festival, including this year’s opening film, Ina Borrmann’s “Good Evening, Beautiful”. 

This year‘s „Fokus Ost“ is curated by Grit Lemke, a filmmaker, author and former programming director at DOK Leipzig. The feature-length films tell, among other things, of the student protest in Rostock against the closure of the branch of the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts during the period of German reunification (“The Class of 1990”), the stories of two former contract workers from Vietnam who were employed in the GDR (“Uncle Thuận”) and a garden that becomes a bright spot within a concrete housing estate in Schwerin (“Garden of Hope”).

The Opening Film 2026

For „Good Evening, Beautiful“, the film’s director, Ina Borrmann, met several protagonists of a 1977 collection of interviews by Maxie Wander titled “Guten Morgen, du Schöne”, and interviewed them again. The feminist classic had left its mark on generations, and remains one of the most influential works in German literature. By speaking with radical candour about matters that are supposedly private, the film once again raises important questions about living in a patriarchy, questions that have lost none of their relevance since the book was first published. 

On 26 October, there will be a public screening of “Good evening, Beautiful” at 20:30 in the East Hall of Leipzig Central Station. Admission is free!

Four other films in this section will be entered in the German Documentary Film Competition and will be announced on 8 October.

DOK Talk on Eastern German Perspectives

The section will also include the DOK Talk “Eastern German Perspectives in Documentary Filmmaking” at the Volkshochschule Leipzig at 16:00 on 30 October, which is being organised in collaboration with the weekly newspaper “der Freitag”. In conversation with guests of this edition of the festival, we discuss questions such as: How are eastern Germany and the realities of life there represented in documentary films? What obstacles do filmmakers face? And which films make it onto the big screen, onto television and onto streaming platforms? 

Find out more about “Fokus Ost” and this year’s opening film in our press release.

More glimpses from this year’s programmes.

Discover the films screening as part of “Fokus Ost”

We are delighted to welcome 35 projects participating in this year’s DOK Co-Pro Market (26 and 27 October). Stemming from across 34 countries, the selected film teams will meet with their potential co-production and financing partners.

Across the lineup, many projects centre on poignantly resonant themes, from reckonings with (colonial) pasts, to explorations of displacement through spaces shaping our daily lives, to interrogations of bodily control under hostile regimes. The crop of projects spans diverse forms and artistic approaches: documentary features, animated documentaries, archival films, and a feature animation (new this year). There is a wide geographic spread, encompassing countries typically less represented in the international film arena, including the DR Congo, Namibia, Palestine, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria. 

This year, the projects are recognised with a total of seven awards at the DOK Co-Pro Market, with two new additions: the Verità Films Award for Best Project and the GRAP Archive Award.

Check out the 35 projects and find out more about the selection in our press release.

Huge congratulations to the teams!

Once again, we pay tribute to established artists for their outstanding work in documentary and animated film.

Documentary Film Hommage 

This year’s Documentary Film Hommage is dedicated to Helena Třeštíková, whose primary cinematic material is time. In her longitudinal observations, she captures what fleeting glances overlook: the quiet  shifts in everyday life, the ruptures, hopes and losses from which human biographies are formed. Behind these individual stories, panoramas of political, social and cultural upheaval simultaneously emerge.

Helena Třeštíková also has a long-standing artistic relationship with DOK Leipzig. “The Miracle”, one of her early films from 1975, was included in the festival programme at the time, and “René”, in which Třeštíková documents her encounters with a prison inmate over a 20-year period, won the Golden Dove in the International Competition in 2008. Along with other films from her oeuvre, both of them will be screened (again) in Leipzig cinemas during festival week. Among them is also her new film „Bára – Diary of a Rockstar“ as part of the International Competition.

All films in the Hommage Helena Třeštíková

Animated Film Hommage 

This year’s Animated Film Hommage celebrates Trollfilm, the Norwegian studio founded by filmmaker Anita Killi, which specialises in multiplane cut-out animation. Operating out of a converted barn within reach of several national parks, Trollfilm has spent more than 30 years using mostly hand-crafted animation to conjure a world that radiates empathy and brims with magical optimism. At the same time, the studio confronts major themes such as domestic violence, intergenerational trauma and war. The Animated Film Hommage comprises two film programmes: one is dedicated to the work of Trollfilm founder Anita Killi, the second showcases other Trollfilm productions.

All films in the Hommage Trollfilm

The programme of both Hommages includes a Masterclass taking place on Thursday and Friday during the festival week.

For more information, please see our press release.