The juries of the 63rd edition of the festival include such filmmakers and artists as Bettina Böhler, Anne Ratte-Polle, Volker Koepp and Alfredo Jaar.
Bettina Böhler, along with Anne Ratte-Polle and Alex Moussa Sawadogo, will determine the winners of the Golden and Silver Doves in the German Competitions at DOK Leipzig. As an editor, Böhler works with such renowned directors as Christian Petzold, Margarethe von Trotta, Angela Schanelec and Valeska Grisebach. She has also realised projects with Christoph Schlingensief. Her documentary film about the director, “Schlingensief: A Voice That Shook the Silence” (“Schlingensief - In das Schweigen hineinschreien”), was released in 2020. Anne Ratte-Polle is one of Germany’s best-known actresses. In 2019, she had the leading role in İlker Çatak’s relationship drama “I Was, I Am, I Will Be” (“Es gilt das gesprochene Wort”) and was nominated for a German Film Award in the category “Best Actress”. Alex Moussa Sawadogo is the artistic director of the Afrikamera film festival in Berlin as well as the founder of the Ouaga Film Lab in Burkina Faso. As an expert on contemporary African film, he has been involved with various film festivals, including those in Cannes and Locarno.
The documentary film director Volker Koepp is also among the jurors of DOK Leipzig 2020. He and four other jury members will select the winners of the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film. For decades, Koepp has dedicated his films to eastern Germany and eastern Europe and the people living there. The winners of the Golden and Silver Dove will also be chosen by the well-known film scholar and critic B. Ruby Rich, whose focus is on independent cinema, Latin American films, documentaries, queer cinema and feminist films, and by the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, whose installations combine photography, architecture and theatre and are exhibited worldwide. The jury will also include the renowned Cameroonian-born cultural producer Koyo Kouoh, who has been a curator of numerous international exhibitions including the documenta, and the Brazilian filmmaker and visual artist Fernanda Pessoa, whose film “Arid Zone” received an honourable mention in DOK Leipzig’s Next Masters Competition in 2019.
The short animated and documentary films in the International Competition will be judged by a jury that will include the Moroccan director Randa Maroufi. Her documentary film “Ceuta’s Gate” was shown in this same competition at DOK Leipzig in 2019. Annegret Richter will also be voting to determine the competition’s winning films. Currently the managing director of AG animated film, she was previously the programme manager in charge of animated films at DOK Leipzig. This is also not the first time that filmmaker Kelvin Kyung Kun Park will be taking part in the Leipzig festival. In 2019 he presented his film “Army” in the Next Masters Competition.
The jury for “The Golden Section” audience awards will consist of film fans who have applied to DOK Leipzig to be on the jury. Deciding the winners in the categories of feature-length documentary or animated film and short documentary or animated film will be Johanna Bender, Maurane Cugny, Hermann Klinghammer, Ahmad Masoud, Rico Mosig, Sabine Seliger and Anita Weiß.
With the exception of the jury for the new “Golden Section” competitions, all jury members will view the films online and discuss what they’ve seen with their colleagues in virtual spaces. A total of ten juries will select the award-winning films at this year’s festival.
The awards of the 63rd edition of DOK Leipzig will be presented in two different events this year. The partner awards will be presented on the afternoon of the festival Sunday (1 November), while the award ceremony of the Golden and Silver Doves will be held that same evening. Both events will be streamed on the Internet and will be accessible to accredited persons and the public.
DOK Leipzig 2020 will be held from 26 October to 1 November in cinemas as well as online. Around 140 films will be screened this year.
