Film Archive

Sections (Film Archive)

Kids DOK 2022
Filmstill Bémol
Bémol
Oana Lacroix
The featherless nightingale has the most beautiful voice in the forest. All the animals enjoy her singing. When autumn comes and she catches a cold, she suddenly can’t sing any more.
Filmstill Bémol

Bémol

Bémol
Oana Lacroix
Kids DOK 2022
Animated Film
Switzerland
2021
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Oh dear, the nightingale has no feathers! The other birds are laughing at her because she can’t fly. Her singing, however, lulls the little bear to sleep. Even the squirrels stop fighting and listen. When autumn comes and the nightingale catches a cold, she feels much too sick to sing. The other animals will have to come up with something …

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Oana Lacroix
Cinematographer
Oana Lacroix
Editor
Oana Lacroix
Producer
Nicolas Burlet
Sound
Jérôme Vittoz
Score
Jérôme Vittoz
Animation
Oana Lacroix
Media Name: 6827b7f2-0586-4282-9423-c49ca5b979b3.png

Berlin – From Dawn to Dusk

In der Dämmerstunde – Berlin
Annik Leroy
Homage Annik Leroy 2020
Documentary Film
Belgium,
FRG
1981
67 minutes
French,
German
Subtitles: 
English

Long walks through almost deserted cityscapes which even in the late 1970s still bear the distinct scars of the Second World War: a Belgian filmmaker encounters West Berlin. She tries to re-adjust in this terrain saturated with European history and films this transformation in the first person singular. The images of twilight captured on grainy 16mm footage make Berlin look like a city that lies deep in the East, even though it sees itself as a Western city. But Annik Leroy mistrusts the mirror images: they don’t help if you want to see things more clearly.

Ralph Eue

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Annik Leroy
Script
Annik Leroy
Cinematographer
Annik Leroy
Editor
Eva Houdova, Daniel De Valck
Producer
Gamma Films, ZDF, Centre de l'Audiovisuel à Bruxelles (CBA)
Sound
Alain Marchal
Retrospective 2021
Media Name: 2f55af86-cd4d-441f-b4ef-1e3e390d2af5.jpg
Berlin-Totale XIV. 2. d) Almstadtstraße
Karl-Heinz Wegner
A production of the State Film Documentation, which was set up to preserve uncensored GDR reality: Long-term residents look back on the German-Jewish history of “their” street.
Media Name: 2f55af86-cd4d-441f-b4ef-1e3e390d2af5.jpg

Berlin-Totale XIV. 2. d) Almstadtstraße

Berlin-Totale XIV. 2. d) Almstadtstraße
Karl-Heinz Wegner
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1979
35 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Why this film document about a street in East Berlin is the way it is, why it conveys an almost touching, basically unformed honesty and perplexity, is due to the specific institution it was made for. The State Film Documentation was founded to provide the GDR with uncensored testimonies of its own reality. Three long-time residents look, through notoriously draughty windows, at the notoriously chilly German-Jewish history: Herr Miegel, former pub owner, Frau Kramp, former cinema employee, Mischket Liebermann, writer and GDR cultural politician. They have been neighbours in their district forever. They will probably remain strangers to each other forever.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Karl-Heinz Wegner
Cinematographer
Roland Worel, Dieter Schönberg
Sound
Dieter Harms
Commissioning Editor
Veronika Otten
Kids DOK 2020
Media Name: af4cbed7-ee99-4026-b5aa-e7d0ce375cf5.jpg
Bertha and the Wolfram
Tijs Torfs
Bertha is determined to tame the wild wolves in her life. She counters her disease, which limits her in her daily life, with brushes, colour palettes and crayons.
Media Name: af4cbed7-ee99-4026-b5aa-e7d0ce375cf5.jpg

Bertha and the Wolfram

Bertha en de wolfram
Tijs Torfs
Kids DOK 2020
Documentary Film
Belgium
2020
15 minutes
Dutch
Subtitles: 
German

Bertha loves to draw. She needs help in her daily life for she has a rare disease that impairs her vision. But Bertha refuses to be discouraged. She has organised an exhibition together with a well-known painter. The proceeds will go to research into her disease, the so-called Wolfram syndrome. Can Bertha tame the wild wolves in her life?

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Tijs Torfs
Producer
Jurgen Buedts
Kids DOK 2022
Filmstill Bgirl Badli
Bgirl Badli
Charlotte Lara De Cort
Mali is 14, a b-girl who lives for breaking. She moves to her sister to the big city to attend a dance school there. The new challenges are huge.
Filmstill Bgirl Badli

Bgirl Badli

Bgirl Badli
Charlotte Lara De Cort
Kids DOK 2022
Documentary Film
Belgium
2022
15 minutes
Dutch,
French

14-year-old Mali’s head is full of dancing. She is a b-girl and lives for breaking. She has just moved into a big city to live with her older sister – and to go to a new school where dancing is one of the main subjects. But can Mali handle the other dance styles? And will her body be able to stand the strain?

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Charlotte Lara De Cort
Cinematographer
Jordan Vanschel
Editor
Jasper Flikshuh, Jonas Verstraeten
Producer
Mark Daems
Sound
Neal Willaert
Sound Design
Jamie MacLean
Score
Mauro Pawlowski
German Competition Short Film 2022
Filmstill Make or Break
Make or Break
Falk Schuster, Mike Plitt
This animated documentary with reduced imagery portrays the protagonist’s traumatic experiences in the GDR’s residential care system and the Torgau Closed Juvenile Detention Centre.
Filmstill Make or Break

Make or Break

Biegen und Brechen
Falk Schuster, Mike Plitt
German Competition Short Film 2022
Animated Film
Germany
2022
8 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Because his single mother criticised the state, Alex was sent to a special children’s home at the age of eleven, in order to shape him – like almost 500,000 children in the GDR – into a “socialist personality”. He escaped and ended up as a punishment at the Torgau Closed Juvenile Detention Centre, more prison than social institution. His life was now dominated by military drill and violence … Reduced rotoscope images follow Alex’s memories and show how the trauma affects him even today.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Falk Schuster, Mike Plitt
Script
Mike Plitt
Cinematographer
Falk Schuster
Editor
Julian Quitsch
Producer
Max Mönch, Alexander Lahl
Sound
Hannes Schulze
Score
Hannes Schulze
Animation
Julian Quitsch, Alexander Schmidt, Falk Schuster
Nominated for: Gedanken Aufschluss Prize, mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
Retrospective 2021
Media Name: 102687fc-8c0a-405a-bfbc-eed0678dcd4f.jpg
Educational Attainment of West German Pupils in the 1950s
Jürgen Neven du Mont
Hitler sold badges to come to power? And really six million murdered Jews? A knowledge test among FRG secondary school pupils where it’s actually the parents that fail.
Media Name: 102687fc-8c0a-405a-bfbc-eed0678dcd4f.jpg

Educational Attainment of West German Pupils in the 1950s

Bildungsstand westdeutscher Schüler in den 50er Jahren
Jürgen Neven du Mont
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
FRG
1959
44 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

On 29 April 1959, Hessian Broadcasting transmitted an alarming survey of the Federal German school system. The first of three parts of the report “Focus on Our Youth” investigates the question of what has stuck in the minds of higher form students about Hitler’s and Ulbricht’s Germanies. Hesse under Polish administration? Hitler sold badges to come to power? At least they are about right concerning the number of murdered Jews – that is, the third who could think of anything to say about this at all. One television critic rightly pointed out that this represented the sum total of all parental table talk. But were these parents watching television on 29 April 1959?

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Jürgen Neven du Mont
Cinematographer
Willy Sedler, Bernhard Weber, Günter Seuss
Editor
Hilde Grabow
Producer
HR Hessischer Rundfunk
Sound
Horst Eiteljörge
Soul-Things 2022
Filmstill Bird in the Peninsula
Bird in the Peninsula
Atsushi Wada
A bird with a swan’s neck nestling in hands, a gently wooded peninsula of longing: Atsushi Wada’s dream and shame logic of a sexual awakening.
Filmstill Bird in the Peninsula

Bird in the Peninsula

Hantō no tori
Atsushi Wada
Soul-Things 2022
Animated Film
France,
Japan
2022
16 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

A boy, a girl, a bird with a swan’s neck nestling in hands, a gently wooded peninsula of longing: Atsushi Wada’s almost speechless animation, mapped out in uniform and unicoloured chains of motifs and events, follows the dream and shame logic of a sexual awakening. There’s a sadness about the rounded and infantile figures, perhaps that of a first “little death”.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Atsushi Wada
Editor
Atsushi Wada
Producer
Emmanuel-Alain Raynal, Pierre Baussaron, Nobuaki Doi
Sound Design
Masumi Takino
Score
Mio Adachi
Animation
Atsushi Wada, Chikako Iwasaki, Margot Barbé, Marilou Soller, Josselin Facon
Retrospective 2023
Filmstill Birth of Solidarity
Birth of Solidarity
Bohdan Kosiński
The authorities decide on the future of Solidarność, the masses protest in the streets. A general strike is in the air. For a moment, political change seems possible.
Filmstill Birth of Solidarity

Birth of Solidarity

Narodziny Solidarności
Bohdan Kosiński
Retrospective 2023
Documentary Film
Poland
1981
29 minutes
Polish
Subtitles: 
English

While the communist authorities decide the conditions for an official registration of the Solidarność movement inside, the masses demonstrate in front of the court outside. A contemporary document of the moment when the power of the people seemed to make a lasting cultural opening no longer just a promise but a possibility. At the time, “undesirable” at the Leipzig festival.

Katharina Franck, Andreas Kötzing

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Bohdan Kosiński
Script
Bohdan Kosiński
Cinematographer
Michał Bukojemski
Editor
Lidia Zonn
Producer
Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych
Sound
Małgorzata Rok, Jan Kalisz
Media Name: ffbeecae-dc4b-4e84-b238-70ef69a8de66.jpg

Björk: Hunter

Björk: Hunter
Paul White
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Experimental Film
UK
1997
4 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

Icelandic musician Björk has always merged natural and technoid creativeness. She samples and loops environmental sounds and transforms them by means of electronic effects. Paul White translates this approach and aesthetics in the video clip for “Hunter”, morphing the singing Björk’s head and human features into an artificial polar bear that seems to be made of liquid plastic.

Cornelia Friederike Müller aka CFM

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Paul White
Performer
Björk
Soul-Things 2022
Filmstill Björk: Tabula Rasa
Björk: Tabula Rasa
Tobias Gremmler
Björk’s figure seamlessly transforms into fantastic organic shapes, while her singing wipes the slate clean: tabula rasa, a free space for children to blossom and make their own mistakes.
Filmstill Björk: Tabula Rasa

Björk: Tabula Rasa

Björk: Tabula Rasa
Tobias Gremmler
Soul-Things 2022
Animated Film
UK
2017
5 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

The figure of the singer Björk seamlessly transforms into petals, into underwater creatures with delicate tentacles and other fantastic organic manifestations impossible to classify. Accompanying Tobias Gremmler’s graceful computer animation, Björk’s singing wipes the slate clean: tabula rasa, a free, unencumbered space for later-born children to blossom and make their own mistakes.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Tobias Gremmler
Performer
Björk
Retrospective 2023
Filmstill Black Days
Black Days
Ladislav Kudelka, Milan Černák, Ctibor Kováč, Štefan Kamenický
The invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968 from a Slovak perspective. Politicians and the population search for an appropriate attitude between caution and determination.
Filmstill Black Days

Black Days

Čierne dni
Ladislav Kudelka, Milan Černák, Ctibor Kováč, Štefan Kamenický
Retrospective 2023
Documentary Film
Czechoslovakia
1968
30 minutes
Slovak
Subtitles: 
English

“Stay calm and level-headed!” Endless armoured convoys, radio stations broadcasting their potentially last announcements and the Slovak Communist Party meeting Czech party representatives. Shaky images and wailing sirens testify to the tension as Warsaw Pact troops march into Bratislava, too, to suppress the Prague Spring.

Katharina Franck, Andreas Kötzing

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ladislav Kudelka, Milan Černák, Ctibor Kováč, Štefan Kamenický
Cinematographer
Vladimír Holloš, Leopold Bródy, Pavel Čilek, Oskar Šághy, Mikuláš Fodor, Rudolf Ferko
Editor
Juraj Lexmann, Anna Forischová
Producer
Československý film Bratislava
Sound
Jozef Kováčik, Jaroslav Kopernický, Alexander Pallós, Ján Fabián
German Competition 2022
Filmstill Blue Sky White Clouds
Blue Sky White Clouds
Astrid Menzel
A ten-day canoe trip on northern German waters is a test for granddaughter Astrid, her brother and her dementia-suffering grandmother. The prerequisite: re-adjusting every single minute.
Filmstill Blue Sky White Clouds

Blue Sky White Clouds

Blauer Himmel Weiße Wolken
Astrid Menzel
German Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2022
91 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Grandma has become a little doddery. And since the death of her husband, called E.O., ever bigger gaps have opened in her memory, and her disorientation has increased. Director Astrid Menzel makes a decision: to take a ten-day canoe trip on northern German waters with her brother and the 86-year-old lady. An adventure whose outcome is uncertain and which the three travellers have to face anew at every stage.

Looking at the sky, watching the changing cloud formations, being all there. Things that Astrid Menzel’s grandmother finds easier as her dementia progresses. Horses and beds are recognisable up there, and sometimes there are thoughts of the late E.O. A chain of disintegration has been set in motion: The beloved house has become confusing, a home for grandma is being searched, the relatives feel nagging guilt. The granddaughter Astrid feels the need for action. Gently and with endless patience, she involves the elderly lady in the preparations and organisation of a canoe trip that would be a challenge for any beginner: Travelling on the river day in and day out, a different sleeping place almost every night. Old and young are trying to find strategies of interaction. Rummikub matches and writing a travel diary anchor them, but emotional breakdowns, too, are part of the endeavour.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Astrid Menzel
Cinematographer
Astrid Menzel
Editor
Justin Koch
Producer
Mike Beilfuss, Urs Krüger
Sound
Astrid Menzel
Score
André Feldhaus, Anders Wasserfall
Winner of: Young Eyes Film Award
Media Name: 4df22b9d-ea77-40ae-9da3-619a15242025.jpg

Bless You!

Zdrastvuyte!
Tatiana Chistova
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2020
Documentary Film
Poland
2020
30 minutes
Russian
Subtitles: 
English

Against the backdrop of Saint Petersburg’s back courtyards during the Corona lockdown, Tatyana Chistova fuses recordings of the almost empty city and calls to a municipal hotline tasked with offering help and advice, but topics range from the banal to existential questions. Elderly people in particular are affected by poverty, hunger and loneliness. Chistova highlights that in a system that neglects its weakest members, the virus is not the only threat.

Kim Busch

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Tatiana Chistova
Script
Maciek Hamela
Cinematographer
Marina Levashova
Editor
Tatiana Chistova
Producer
Maciek Hamela
Score
Patryk Zakrocki
World Sales
Georg Gruber
Beyond Animation 2023
Filmstill Blight
Blight
John Smith
A rhythmic collage of sounds and film images accompanies the demolition of a house in East London and becomes a protest piece against the motorway network that destroys the neighbourhood.
Filmstill Blight

Blight

Blight
John Smith
Beyond Animation 2023
Experimental Film
UK
1996
15 minutes
English

A rhythmic collage of sounds and filmed sequences accompanies the demolition of a house. People from a neighbourhood in East London report in interview fragments: The living conditions were not comfortable – ugh, those spiders! – but the families had a home that had grown over generations. Now the community protests against being squeezed out by a motorway network.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
John Smith
Script
John Smith
Cinematographer
John Smith
Editor
John Smith
Sound
John Smith
Score
Jocelyn Pook
Kids DOK 2022
Filmstill Blocks
Blocks
Adrian Jaffé
A group of figures made of beads and building blocks move to the same rhythm – until the little green figure is to wear beads, too. Everything gets out of sync.
Filmstill Blocks

Blocks

Blocks
Adrian Jaffé
Kids DOK 2022
Animated Film
Germany
2022
3 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The little green figure runs up the mountain to the other figures made of beads and small building blocks. All move to the same rhythm, right, left, up, down. One day the little green figure, too, is supposed to decorate itself with beads. But this throws everything out of sync. The gears come to a standstill.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Adrian Jaffé
Editor
Adrian Jaffé
Producer
Adrian Jaffé
Sound
Tim Hennig
Sound Design
Tim Hennig
Score
Tim Hennig
Animation
Adrian Jaffé