63rd Edition of DOK Leipzig Starting Today
Today marks the beginningn of the 63rd edition of the Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, aka DOK Leipzig. Until November 1,150 films and XR works will be presented at nine venues across the city, as well as online. This year, all DOK Industry events are held exclusively online.
The coveted Golden and Silver Doves will be awarded to the winners and runners-up, respectively, of six competitions. The ceremony will take place during the first DOK Industry event, hosted by Christoph Terhechte. Besides the International and National Competitions for both full-length and short documentary and animated films, the "Golden Section" event will feature two competitions for audience awards. A new out-of-competition section titled "Camera Lucida" will screen unconventional films.
The official program features two films co-funded by MDM (Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung): Andreas Voigt’s "Grenzland" has made it into the National Competition for full-length documentary and animated films. It has Voigt, a renowned maker of animated films, embarking on a poetic journey along the German-Polish border. The film is centered on encounters with people who are united by either their loss of or their search for a place to belong. They are displaced persons, refugees, emigrants, or immigrants.
The short film "Hotel Astoria", by Alina Cyranek and Falk Schuster, is contending for the audience award in the corresponding competition. With a blend of rotoscoped material and historic footage and photos, the duo creates a portrait of the historic Leipzig landmark, vacant since 1996 but one of the most exclusive hotels of the GDR. The booking schedule used to be a who’s who of business people, politicians and celebrities from all over the world.
Additionally, this year’s program includes six curated special sections. This includes "Re-Visionen", a look back on 25 years of animated film competition at DOK Leipzig, and "DOK Neuland", which features Virtual Reality content and 360-degree filmmaking. Almost all films will be available online all over Germany for two weeks.
Due to the pandemic, all DOK Industry events will be held online, including the DOK Co-Pro Market, the DOK Short ’n’ Sweet short-film pitching event, and the DOK Exchange discussion panel. Finally, a podcast series on various subjects affecting the industry forms part of this year’s festival program.
DOK Leipzig is Germany’s biggest and one of the leading festivals worldwide dedicated to artistic documentary and animated films as well as interactive storytelling. For many years, the festival’s DOK Industry component, with its outstanding offer of events for industry professionals, has been a must-go for creative minds. MDM has been a funding partner since 1998; this year it contributes 170,500 euros jointly to DOK Festival and DOK Industry.
For more information, visit www.dok-leipzig.de