Nasim by Ole Jacobs, Arne Büttner
In 2021, the films selected for the German Competitions at DOK Leipzig once again represent a wide variety of cinematic approaches, in terms of both their themes and their formal criteria, explain Dok Leipzig festival organisers ahead of the event running 25-31 October. The films works current political crises, seek out historical vestiges and sketch introspective portraits, they add.
The selection committee has nominated a total of 15 productions for the German Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film and the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film. Among them are eleven world premieres, one European and three German premieres. Female film-makers are heavily represented in the German Competition, having directed seven of the eight long documentary films nominated.
Jurors Maria Speth, Gudrun Sommer and Carsten Möller will decide who gets the Golden and Silver Dove in the competitions for feature-length and short films.
Topics this years include the situation of refugees in Camp Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos (Nasim), the migration factor for families in the Dominican Republic (Los cuatro vientos) and the protests against Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus (Handbook). Some films draw a connection between political and aesthetic discourse, for example in works about female body hair (Happytrail), a socialist monument in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin (Head Fist Flag – Perspectives on the Thälmann Memorial) and the colour of the 100 yuan note (Pink Mao), the largest denomination of Renminbi banknotes in the People’s Republic of China. Historical vestiges, memories and traditions are traced by two other films in present-day Silesia (Time Before Land) and in the jungles of Vietnam (Dust of Modern Life).
Other works in the competitions portray extraordinary individuals and are partly the result of intimate relationships. Two films, for example, deal in very different ways with the documentary images of a past love (Everyman and I and Reality Must Be Addressed). They reflect upon how the camera creates intimacy and distance, play and authenticity in the rapport between the film- and those filmed. Two other works focus on soundscapes by portraying a musician (A Sound of My Own) who continues her father’s legendary band project Embryo, and a passionate instrument-maker (75/1).
Katharina Pethke returns to Leipzig with Everyman and I, a personal work about and involving actor Philipp Hochmair. In 2011 she had received the Golden Dove in the German Competition for the film Louisa. Also returning is Betina Kuntzsch with Head Fist Flag – Perspectives on the Thälmann Memorial, after her film Spirit Away was awarded the Golden Dove in the International Competition Animated Documentary in 2015. Other film-makers such as Malte Stein (Flood, German Competition Short Film 2018) and Johanna Seggelke (Bibi Must Go, co-directed with Marie Zrenner, German Competition Short Film 2020) have previously been nominated in Leipzig.
This year’s jury consists of film-maker Maria Speth, festival director Gudrun Sommer and film lecturer and director Carsten Möller. The jurors will jointly determine the winning films of the Golden and Silver Dove in the German Competitions of DOK Leipzig.
This year’s award-winning films will receive their gongs on 30 October 2021) The films in the German Competition are nominated for a Golden Dove, the films in the German Competition Short Film for a Silver Dove.
Other prizes are: the DEFA Sponsoring Prize, the Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, the ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, the “Leipziger Ring” Film Prize from the Stiftung Friedliche Revolution, the Young Eyes Film Award and the mephisto 97.6 Award for best animated film.
