DOK.fest Munich

Outrageous, internationally acclaimed queer artist Ivo Dimchev’s response to the pandemic was to perform more than 400 private concerts in people’s homes in his home country of Bulgaria, as well as in Istanbul, New York, and Los Angeles. But the concert he really needed to perform, and which concludes the film, is for his parents who never stood by him when he needed them most. “I was drawn to Ivo’s defiance—his passion for life,” comments director Kristina Nikolova. “He reawakened something in me that had gone dormant in motherhood and during COVID.”

The sport of table tennis (or ‘whiff whaff’ as former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson once famously called it) hasn’t been much covered by filmmakers. However, it spins firmly into view in Jonas Egert’s student diploma feature documentary, Ping Pong Paradise, a world premiere in Dok.Fest Munich. The director smashes back replies to questions served up by BDE.

After premiering his feature debut Mañana Sol at DOK.fest Munich in 2024, prolific German producer/director Denis Pavlovic is now screening the film on the Doc Around Europe VOD platform. Additionally, he has three further works in the pipeline. As producer, The Mountain Has Fallen (director Thomas Oswald) competes for a DOK.composition Award at DOK.fest Munich 2025. As director/producer, Pavlovic is raising finance on the feature doc Hidden Lines: A Life with Scoliosis, optioned by SWR, and is further raising finance on the feature doc A Land That Time Forgot.

The tousle-haired musical knight Sir Simon Rattle is the focus of Benedikt Schulte’s new documentary world-premiering May 16 in The Sound of Music section of DOK.fest Munich. And given that Rattle is the chief conductor of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and has German citizenship, he’ll be there in person to see it. Director Schulte gets musical with BDE.

Eliza Petkova won the The VIKTORIA DOK.international Main Competition for Silent Observers. The VIKTORIA DOK.deutsch winner was named as Wir Erben by Simon Baumann. The VIKTORIA DOK.horizonte Competition – Cinema of Urgency prize went to Rashid, l’enfant de Sinjar by Jasna Krajinovic. A total of 64,200 euros in prize money was awarded. All winners…

The award honours German and international documentary film productions in which filmmakers with disabilities play a leading role. The prize is sponsored by the Werksviertel-Mitte Stiftung and comes with a cash endowment of 5,000 euros. The closing date for entries is 3 February 2025. The 40th edition of DOK.fest Munich runs May 7-18 2025.