Students‘ experiences from the DOK Leipzig International Film Festival 2023

DOK Leipzig is a documentary film festival that takes place every October in Leipzig, Germany. It is an international film festival for documentary and animated film founded in 1955 under the name „1st All-German Leipzig Festival of Cultural and Documentary Films“ and was the first independent film festival in East Germany.

Thanks to the accreditation that our university, the h_da,  provides, each year Motion Pictures students have the remarkable opportunity to attend and enjoy the festival’s editions, draw inspiration from the rich selection of films and cultivate meaningful connections. We’ll present you the first-person experiences of two of the students who visited the festival in the fall. And you could be next!

 

---

Gulya Amatova

„What sounds better than a trip to beautiful Leipzig with fellow co-students? An excursion with fellow co-students into the world of documentary film at Dok Leipzig! From 08-15 October 2023 the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film took place this year in its 66th edition. The university gave us the opportunity to be accredited for the film festival free of charge. Thus, a total of 225 documentaries and an interesting industry programme were accessible to us. I happily seized this opportunity and spent a total of 3.5 festival days there.

Planning the cinema visits was simple. We collected our accreditation from the ticket counter and could then obtain free tickets for the screenings. For the selection of films, there was a thick programme booklet and a flyer with the schedule for the day – nicely packed in a cute, practical festival tote bag. The participating cinemas where the films were shown were mostly located in the city centre, some more scattered. The Germany ticket was therefore put to good use.

Arriving on Wednesday, the first highlight took place in the evening: a get-together for all interested accredited participants, organised by ARTE. People were able to connect, free drinks and finger food were offered, some MoPis came together. I got to know a Kyrgyz film-maker, which was very surprising and pleasing, as I myself come from Kyrgyzstan and in Germany, one rarely encounters Central Asian faces. Especially in the German film industry!

After a great start to the festival, the next day continued with a film programme and a pitch competition. The film selection varied from coming-of-age stories to the exploration of genocides. Identity issues, Eastern Europe focus, family stories, the war in Ukraine… Two films particularly stood out in my mind: „Kumva-Which comes from Silence“ (Sarah Mallégol) about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and „Photophobia“ (Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík) about two Ukrainian children who spent months with their families in a Kharkiv underground station, seeking shelter.

Thanks to our accreditation, we were also able to visit the Short n‘ Sweet pitch competition and witness several pitches. However, the event unfolded much more relaxed and easy-going than I had imagined.

All in all, we had a great time, watched a lot of films that inspired us and some that didn’t – which is also fine, as not everything can appeal to you. And what you didn’t manage to watch in the cinema, you could simply catch up on in the stream.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to attend such events at a reduced cost during our studies and for the chance to meet wonderful new people in Leipzig! I would recommend to every fellow student to consider taking advantage of this offer next year, especially if you are a fan of documentary films or just curious.“

---

Vito Spiekermann (3rd semester)

„In October 2023, together with a few fellow co-students, I took part in the DOK Leipzig Film Festival via a student accreditation. As I generally enjoy going to film festivals, I wanted to take the opportunity to visit perhaps the most renowned documentary film festival in
Germany. Overall, the festival experience did not disappoint me and I had a very good time in Leipzig.

Due to the proximity of the venues to each other and the generally manageable size of the city centre, it was very pleasant to get from one screening to the next and you were relatively free to plan your day without having to take long travel times into account. There were also no problems with the organisation of the festival. The program was well-structured, making it easy to get an overview of what was showing when. Even in fairly crowded screenings, tickets were still obtainable spontaneously with the accreditation. In total, I spent four days at the festival and watched 8 feature-length or medium-length films, as well as various short films.

Among the competition films, I particularly liked „Vista Mare“ by Florian Kofler and Julia Gutweniger, which is about the tourism industry on the Italian Adriatic. This completely explorative documentary film shows in impressive tableau-like images the action of a holiday season, including the preparation and follow-up work by the local workforce. I was particularly impressed by it visually and by the poetic humour of many of the moments captured.

What I remember most, however, is probably the last screening I attended in which the films „Karpotrotter“ and „Playing Men“ by Matjaž Ivanišin were shown as part of a retrospective of Slovenian cinema. The second film in particular touched me in a very special way. It is sort of an essay-film in which, along the Balkan region and Italy, men are shown playing the most peculiar games, such as oil wrestling or the traditional rolling of cheese through a mountainous old town. The film shows all these curiosities without really making fun of them, but rather through the poetry of everyday life. Simultaneously, the film struck me as a very personal, sensitive, yet universal exploration of the topic of masculinity, without making any bold statements.

During these screenings, and almost all of them, I was very happy not only to see the films but also to hear more detailed insights from the filmmakers in a Q&A and to be able to ask my own questions. This is exactly what festivals are the right place for, for engaging with topics and artistic approaches that one might not have access to otherwise.“

---

We hope that Gulya’s and Vito’s sharings have sparked a sense of curiosity, encouraging you to explore the opportunities presented by forthcoming similar events! : )