Festival Description
The International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film – in short: DOK Leipzig – is an annual festival for documentary and animated films. The festival is sponsored and organised by the city of Leipzig. It commissions the non-profit Leipzig-based DOK-Filmwochen GmbH with the preparation, implementation and management of the festival.
2023 Call for Entries (Archive)
The 66th edition of the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (DOK Leipzig) will take place in Leipzig from 8 October to 15 October 2023.
Eligibility criteria:
Categories:
The festival programme is organised into six competitions and two out-of-competition sections, whose films can be nominated for awards across all sections.
NEW: Golden Dove for the best feature-length animated film
The award money (in EUR) for Golden Doves, Silver Doves and Partner Awards will be paid directly to the directors.
Kids DOK presents documentary and animated films for children and young people in age-appropriate programmes of short and feature-length films. Documentaries and animated films of all lengths from the production years 2022 and 2023 can be submitted via the official entry form. A premiere is welcome, but not required.
ARCHIVE
2020 Festival Coverage
2019 Festival Coverage
2018 Festival Coverage
Animation Juries:
The winners in the International Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film will be determined by a jury composed of British producer Greg Sanderson, Barbara Truyen, director of the documentary film department at the Dutch television broadcaster VPRO, as well as Austria’s Jürgen Hagler, professor for computer animation and animation studies and director of the Ars Electronica Animation Festival in Linz.
Official Selection 2018:
From Argentina to Egypt, Lebanon to Latvia, Montenegro to Madagascar, and Sierra Leone to Saudi Arabia – this year we are showing a grand total of 306 films from 50 different countries. Of the 3,150 works viewed by the selection committee over the course of the last year, 160 have now made it into the Official Selection, the further films will be screened in the scope of our Special Programmes.
DOK Leipzig’s Official Selection is composed of six competitions and the International Programme as well as the new section LATE HARVEST. Female directors account for a full fifty per cent of the films of the Official Selection.
In the films of the individual programmes and competitions, DOK Leipzig takes a look at the legacy of the Soviet Union, at self-determined women and contemporary female figures, at architectural masterpieces and deep into the abyss – while attempting to get to the roots of current political trends in Germany, Europe and beyond.
Guests: Ruth Beckermann and Werner Herzog
At this year’s festival edition, the work of Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann will be featured in several ways. Beckermann, who is regarded as a co-founder of the independent film scene in Austria, will be honoured with a homage, and she will also give insights into her filmmaking in a masterclass. In addition, she will be one of the jurors deciding about the winners in the Next Masters Competitions.
Werner Herzog is without a doubt among the most influential German filmmakers in the history of cinema. Over the course of his career as a director, he has made more than 60 documentaries and feature films. At DOK Leipzig 2018, he is not only presenting his new film Meeting Gorbachev as the opening film – his documentary work is also the focus of a Homage bearing the title ECSTATIC TRUTHS.
NB: 2024 Festival Dates are tentative