The winners of the 2021 DOK.fest Munich 2021 are as follows:
VIKTOR DOK.international Main Competition (€10,000): Anny by Helena Třeštíková
Jury statement: “The beautifully intimate and superbly crafted film Anny follows its protagonist over 16 years, starting when she is 46 years old and begins working as a sex-worker on the streets of Prague to supplement her income as a restroom attendant. Helena Třeštíková masterfully combines this longitudinal approach with a modest film length. Without any gratuitous or superficial moments, Třeštíková treats her seemingly ordinary yet multifaceted protagonist with great respect and care. A poignant celebration of the human spirit, the film also reveals economic struggles and touches on life in the Czech Republic during and after communism.”
VIKTOR DOK.deutsch (€5,000): Zuhur’s Daughters by Laurentia Henske, Robin Humboldt
Jury statement: “They put on make-up, they listen to music, they talk about boys. Samar and Lohan long to have a real life. The right life in the right body. The two sisters are trans. In their home country of Syria, that would have meant certain death. ‘f your son or wife does something forbidden and you don’t kill them, you have to leave’, their father explains. So he fled to Germany with his two wives and four children. Because “who is capable of killing their own child? Your child is part of your soul,” he says. Talib and his wife Zuhur do not understand their children, but mostly they worry about them. Filmmakers Laurentia Genske and Robin Humboldt show all this with great empathy. Their film follows and documents in the best sense the transwomen’s path to the life they hoped for – with all its hurdles and difficulties. And at the same time it reveals to the audience what it means to be a foreigner, a refugee and a woman.”
VIKTOR DOK.horizonte (€5,000): Things We Dare Not Do by Bruno Santamaría
Jury statement: “The film reveals a child’s world of wonder and joy amidst the violence of adult life in their community. The jury was mesmerized by the filmmaker’s delicate and caring way of looking at his main characters. Through their daily rituals and deep existential awakenings the youth counter the heartbreaking realities of life with incredible bravery and a deep desire to, in fact, dare to be themselves. The film culminates in a breathtaking plea for acceptance and love that stayed with the jury long after the credits rolled. It was simply beautiful.”
Other awards of DOK.fest München 2021 @home:
FFF Talent Award Documentary Film: Väter Unser by Sophie Linnenbaum
megaherz Student Award: The Case You by Alison Kuhn
DOK.edit Award – presented by Adobe: Nemesis by Thomas Imbach
VFF Documentary Film Production Award: The Other Side of the River by Frank Müller, Guevara Namer, Antonia Kilian (already awarded)
German Documentary Film Music Award: Soldiers by Christoph Schauer (already awarded)
DOK.fest Award of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit: School of Hope by Mohamed El Aboudi (already awarded)
The kinokino Audience Award will be handed out May 21 2021.
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DOK.FORUM AWARDS 2021
DOK.series Award sponsored by TELLUX und megahertz (€2500): Un pedazo de paz by Jacobo Albán (director), Carlos Zerpa (director and producer), Benoît Ayraud (producer)
From the jury’s statement: “A short animated series chronicling sixty years of war in Colombia through intimate testimonies. The animated characters – based on an amalgam of real life survivors and supporters of the peace process between the Columbian Government and the FARC-EP guerrilla – convey the mundane horrors of their war experience in a tactile and poignant way. Their voices are spoken by individual survivors, creating a powerful and universal narrative of resilience. The masterfully crafted animation in Un pedazo de paz (Apiece of Peace) shines a light on what is supposed to stay hidden: a gaping wound that is a country and its people.”
DOK.digital – Award for new narrative formats sponsored by Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM, €2,500): Safespace by Whitney Bursch, Säli El Mohands, Rosa Fabry, Saphira Siegmund, Lea Wessels, Ariane Böhm, Elena Münker, Kim Neubauer
From the jury’s statement: “A young editorial team creates content around the topics of mental and physical health and well-being for an even younger and hard-to-reach audience. The platform of choice is TikTok, where this audience is at home. The SAFESPACE team communicates authentically and at eye level, feedback from the community is taken directly and translated into new content. Safespace indeed offers a protected space on a platform where very young users in particular feel at home and look for like-minded people. A platform that, like many other social media channels, is not always entirely innocent of problematic body images and insecurity due to the many perfectly staged images/videos and negative comments.”
Bettina Katja Lange and Uwe Brunner received an honourable mention for The Smallest of Worlds.
Pitch Award of the Haus des Dokumentarfilms (€2500): Der Siebte Sohn (The Seventh Son) by Max Carlo Kohal (director)
From the jury’s statement: “For his long-term observation, Max Carlo Kohal takes us into a clearly defined universe – a cargo ship on European inland waters. From Basel to Rotterdam, always along the Rhine. Three men steer the ship and spend their lives there. With the director, we accompany the young Rudmer, who will spend the next three years training to become a sailor. The jury of the Pitch Award appreciates this insight into a world that is unknown and unseen. […] The director shows us the complex world of industrialised goods traffic – and at the same time presents a very personal film here, shot in a very small space, a globalisation story from below.”
British Pathé Award (archive material worth 15,000 euros or alternatively 2,500 euros in cash): Life Is Not a Competition But I’m Winning by Julia Fuhr Mann (director)
From the jury’s statement: “Our audiovisual heritage is our preserved memory. In this collective memory we can find many beautiful as well as uncomfortable perspectives on ourselves that were never the conscious intention of the recorder. With their new examination of our past, the director and producer of Life Is Not a Competition But I’m Winningbring us into the present day. By mirroring the power of our collective adherence to norms and narratives, they question our willingness to change. The project by Julia Fuhr Mann, Sophie Ahrens and Melissa Byrne deals with the utopian potential of competitive sport beyond rigid gender boundaries and images. […]”
German Composition Funding Award sponsored by Sonoton Music (€2500): May It Be A Girl by Akmaral Zykayeva (composer), Katerina Suvorova (director), Viktoriya Kalashnikova (production)
From the jury statement: “May It Be A Girl deals with a widespread phenomenon in Kazakhstan. The portrait film explores the self-perception of modern Central Asian women who have been given male names by their parents because their parents wanted a boy and not a girl as a child: one such name, for example, is Ulbolsyn – It Shall Be a Boy. The protagonists reflect on the meaning and consequences of their name and thus pose questions about the significance and place of women in the family and society. […] The musician and composer Akmaral Zykayeva alias Mergen will create an auteur soundtrack in close collaboration with the director Katerina Suvorova and the producer Viktoriya Kalashnikova. […]”
MENTORING AWARDS
Sunny Side of the Doc Award: Life Is Not a Competition But I’m Winning by Julia Fuhr Mann (director), Melissa Byrne, Sophie Ahrens (producer)
DAE Talent Award: 8 bis 18 (8 to 18) by Cosima Frei (director), Nadine Lüchinger (producer) and one year DAE-Membership to Hostage by Liwaa Yazji (director, producer)
Nebulae Project Award: Hood Riders by Florian Baron (director), Dimitri Hempel (producer)
DocsBarcelona: The Wolves Always Come At Night by Gabrielle Brady (director), Julia Niethammer (producer)
FIPADOC: Hayflick Limit by Thomas Licata (director), Florence Saâdi, Christine Pireaux (producer)
