Film Archive

Filmstill Mamie 44

Mamie 44

Mamie 44
Lucie Dèche
International Competition Documentary Film 2023
Documentary Film
France
2023
55 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
English

An old family secret is fermenting in the father’s winery in southwest France. The grandfather had been executed by the Résistance in 1944 because he had collaborated with the Nazis. For decades, no one talked about it, daily work continued, from cultivation to harvest, from the wine press to maturation, an eternal cycle. The daughter comes to visit with a camera and a microphone. She remixes the sounds of farming, asks questions, builds openings in the experimental interstices between image and sound for the father to come to himself. Maybe what was buried and ploughed under can be reflected today – if they succeed in breaking the cycle for a moment.

The father has answers. He knows the patriarchal system of agriculture, where neighbours are envious and unpleasant things are quickly interred so they will not be passed on to the children. And yet what was interred has not dissolved completely, over generations. Insects buzz over the soil, something underneath attracts them. A small frog is caught in the wine press with the grapes. And the filmmaker’s daughter looks for a new tune on the old family piano.

Jan Künemund

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Lucie Dèche
Cinematographer
Lucie Dèche
Editor
Caro Beuret
Producer
Guillaume Bordier
Sound Design
Lucie Dèche
Nominated for: Prize of the Interreligious Jury, FIPRESCI Prize
Camera Lucida 2023
Filmstill Man in Black
Man in Black
Bing Wang
A theatre in Paris becomes the stage of an impressive encounter: The aged composer Wang Xilin is naked – and exposes the cruelties of the communist regime in China.
Filmstill Man in Black

Man in Black

Man in Black
Bing Wang
Camera Lucida 2023
Documentary Film
France,
USA,
UK
2023
60 minutes
Chinese
Subtitles: 
English

Wang Xilin does not enter the stage in a suite, as the title might suggest, but completely naked. He stretches and bends, appears to familiarise himself with his surroundings, does some vocal exercises, sits down at the piano. Wang Xilin is one of China’s most important composers of contemporary music, having written his first symphonies in his youth. Wang Bing gives the 86-year-old more than a little space. For his portrait, he presents him with the entire Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris.

This is where Wang Xilin reviews his life of torture and oppression, recapitulates the tribulations in communist China, reports knocked-out teeth and nightmares, suicides among intellectuals. His testimony is frequently underlaid, sometimes even drowned out by grandiose musical arrangements. When an orchestra thunders from offscreen, Wang Xilin’s body rears up – “Man in Black” is also an exorcistic oral history. The composer turns himself into his own instrument, into the medium of a violent epoch, sharing his emotions literally unveiled.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Bing Wang
Cinematographer
Caroline Champetier
Editor
Claire Atherton
Producer
Lihong Kong, Sonia Buchman, Nicolas R. De La Mothe
Co-Producer
Karin Chien, Liza Essers
Sound
Erwan Kerzanet, Emmanuel Soland
Score
Xilin Wang
World Sales
Lya Li
-
Ying Wang, Xilin Wang, Xiaoxia Zhou
Filmstill Margarethe 89

Margarethe 89

Margarethe 89
Lucas Malbrun
International Competition Animated Film 2023
Animated Film
France
2023
18 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

The end of real-socialist oppression, doomed love and tacit double morals unfold in colourful felt-pen images and clear lines. Leipzig, 1989. The city still belongs to the blue shirts of the Free German Youth, there is still talk of a flourishing country in festive speeches. Locked away in a mental hospital for belonging to the Leipzig punk scene and abused as “belonging to an enemy faction” that undermines the GDR from within: Margarethe can stand it. Ultimately, however, the lack of briquettes and the cold water in the communal shower make the young woman dream of being close to her boyfriend Heinrich. While the protests in the streets are growing, Heinrich and his band play church-organised punk concerts that hint at the prospect of freedom. But Stasi spies are more present than ever – until the newly gained freedom to travel scatters them to the winds along with the lights of the fireworks.

Jana Kraft

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Lucas Malbrun
Script
Lucas Malbrun, Marie Larrivé
Cinematographer
Lucas Malbrun
Editor
Clara Saunier, Vincent Tricon
Producer
Nicolas de Rosanbo, Céline Vanlint
Sound
Elodie Thevenin
Sound Design
Quentin Romanet
Score
Mael Oudin
World Sales
Miguel Español Celiméndiz
Artistic Design
Morgan Curt, Hippolyte Cupillard, Jean-Baptiste Peltier, Charlie Belin, Jonas Schloesing, Daria Skripka, Yehor Bondarenko, Angelina Dorozhinskaia
Nominated for: mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
International Competition 2021
Media Name: 9e63b2d2-e42d-429b-a026-e5a321e26a5a.jpeg
May God Be with You
Cléo Cohen
The young Frenchwoman Cléo Cohen has an identity crisis: Is she Jewish? Arab? Even her grandparents seem unclear about this. Cléo struggles for clarity: intensely, playfully.
Media Name: 9e63b2d2-e42d-429b-a026-e5a321e26a5a.jpeg
Media Name: c40aa093-3242-45d5-9320-2be7c122b331.jpeg

May God Be with You

Que Dieu te protège
Cléo Cohen
International Competition 2021
Documentary Film
France
2021
77 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
English, German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing

The director makes an attempt to locate herself, because historical erosions in society and politics have led to an identity crisis for Cléo Cohen, a young Frenchwoman. Is she Arab? Jewish? She struggles for clarification, aided by her grandparents, who all emigrated from the Maghreb to France as Jews. The questioning is playful, but determined. Cléo awakens memories, confronts, muses in the bathtub.

Cléo wants to find out from her grandmother Flavie whether she’s “sedje”, able to marry. Flavie reacts evasively. Her sister would definitely be, Flavie thinks, and Cléo, too, knows roughly how to go about things. But she doesn’t seem entirely convinced. Cléo Cohen is in the middle of a process of discovery. Her grandparents play a role in this. While some came to France as Algerian Jews, others relocated from the neighbouring country of Tunisia, also as Jews. Cléo is confused. Denise’s native tongue, for example, is Arabic, she knows Arabic cuisine, but she’s not an Arab? Cléo talks to everyone, shoulders her way briskly but warmly into the past. She reads the writings of Albert Memmi, who grew up in Tunis as the son of Jewish parents under French colonial rule; she listens to Philippe Katerine’s song “Juifs arabes”. She travels to Tunisia.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Cléo Cohen
Cinematographer
Cléo Cohen
Editor
Saskia Berthod
Producer
Rebecca Houzel, Maria Knoch
Sound
Gilles Bénardeau
Score
Patrick Bismuth
World Sales
Pascale Ramonda
Executive Producer
Petit à Petit Production
Winner of: Prize of the Interreligious Jury
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Meat Joy
Meat Joy
Pierre Dominique Gaisseau, Carolee Schneemann
Dance is primarily physical, and “Meat Joy” is the cinematic essence of an unrestrained celebration of a performance improvisation, with lots of skin and set to ambiguous popular songs.
Filmstill Meat Joy

Meat Joy

Meat Joy
Pierre Dominique Gaisseau, Carolee Schneemann
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Documentary Film
France
1964
11 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Dance is primarily physical. Smell, warmth, touch – “Meat Joy” presents their essence, set to a collage of ambiguous pop songs. Carolee Schneemann lets us experience from up close the unrestrained celebration of a physical, lubricious, erotic performance improvisation, using framing, montage and a visual aesthetic reminiscent of painting to dissolve the body shapes.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Pierre Dominique Gaisseau, Carolee Schneemann
Editor
Carolee Schneemann, Trevor Shimizu
Producer
Carolee Schneemann
Sound Design
Carolee Schneemann, James Tenney, Trevor Shimizu
Performer
Carolee Schneemann
Filmstill Motorrodillo

Motorrodillo

Motorrodillo
Alba Jaramillo
International Competition Short Film 2022
Documentary Film
Colombia,
France
2022
30 minutes
Spanish
Subtitles: 
English

In rural northern Colombia, where the railway has long been discontinued, people help themselves with a fleet of “Motorrodillos” – motorcycle-driven miniature trains. Every day, Dolly and her colleagues take school kids, goods and travellers on rugged routes from village to village. If you meet oncoming traffic on the way, you get off the rails. If you find holes in the rails, you mend them yourself. The affectionate portrait of a self-organised transport system.

Marie Kloos

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Alba Jaramillo
Cinematographer
David Horacio Montoya
Editor
Francine Lemaître
Producer
Qutaiba Barhamji, Marie-Odile Gazin, Alba Jaramillo
Sound
Andres Acevedo, Manuel Vidal
Kids DOK 2021
Media Name: 432a4cd8-0913-44ce-84e2-7d25b67813f3.jpg
Mum Is Pouring Rain
Hugo De Faucompret
Jane has to spend Christmas with her grandmother in the country: how boring! Against all odds, the holidays turn out to be a real adventure.
Media Name: 432a4cd8-0913-44ce-84e2-7d25b67813f3.jpg

Mum Is Pouring Rain

Maman pleut des cordes
Hugo De Faucompret
Kids DOK 2021
Animated Film
France
2021
29 minutes
French
Subtitles: 
None

Jane’s mother is going through hard times and informs her that she will have to spend Christmas with her grandmother “Onion” in the country this year. No argument. Jane doesn’t feel like it at all: how boring! Against all odds, the holidays turn out to be a real adventure. Jane meets new friends and begins to open up to others.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Hugo De Faucompret
Script
Lison d’Andréa, Hugo De Faucompret
Editor
Benjamin Massoubre
Producer
Ivan Zuber, Antoine Lietout
Co-Producer
Emmanuèle Pétry-Sirvin, Jean-Baptiste Wery
Score
Pablo Pico
Animation
Eva Lusbaronian
World Sales
Emmanuèle Pétry-Sirvin
Broadcaster
Canal+
International Competition Short Film 2022
Filmstill The Mechanics of Fluids
The Mechanics of Fluids
Gala Hernández López
Incel culture is the expression of a current understanding of masculinity. López’s essay investigates the echo chamber effect on the internet and the feeling of loneliness in the age of algorithms.
Filmstill The Mechanics of Fluids

The Mechanics of Fluids

La mécanique des fluides
Gala Hernández López
International Competition Short Film 2022
Documentary Film
France
2022
39 minutes
English,
French
Subtitles: 
English

In 2018, a user called AnathematicAnarchist published a suicide note in an online forum for incels – a subculture of heterosexual men whose self-pity, misogyny and fantasies of violence dominate the internet in many places and trigger offline actions in some. Did he really take his own life? Is America responsible for his death, as he claims in his text? A search for clues in the darkest corners of the net, an essay about pain and loneliness in the age of algorithms.

Marie Kloos

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Gala Hernández López
Script
Gala Hernández López
Cinematographer
A. Pol Camprubí
Editor
Gala Hernández López, Alberto Dexeus
Producer
Lucas Le Postec, Thibault de Gantes, Ninon Chapuis
Sound
Diego Delgado
Sound Design
Mélia Roger
Score
Mélia Roger
Animation
Claudia Martín