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A wide area or street at dusk: four children move towards the camera. Two are running, two are riding their bicycles. Above them flies a kite, which the child on the far left holds by the string.
Film scene from “Boney Piles”, directed by Taras Tomenko

The Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival could not be held in Kyiv this past March due to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Therefore, in a show of solidarity with the Docudays UA team, DOK Leipzig will be providing a venue for the 19th edition of that festival.

A programme called “Spotlight on: Docudays UA 2022” will present the four films selected for the DOCU/UKRAINE national competition along with the opening film “Boney Piles”. These works paint a nuanced portrait of the country, telling of property disputes in Kyiv and flea markets in Odesa, of first responders amid the pandemic in rural Transcarpathia, and also of the consequences of the war that has been going on in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The award-winning film “Plai. A Mountain Path” by Eva Dzhyshyashvili was honoured at the Kraków Film Festival in June. The competition jury included Stanislav Bytiutsky, Devika Girish and Daniel Abma, the latter of whom is also on the selection committee in Leipzig.

DOK Leipzig’s new “Panorama” section will open a window on the world of central and eastern European film, which is closely linked to the history of the festival. The short and long works screened in this section will range from the socialist past through the period of upheaval to the present day. They’ll include works by established filmmakers, such as Latvian-born animation artist Signe Baumane, as well as by talented up-and-coming documentary filmmakers, such as Otilia Babara from Moldova. Panorama will also include films from Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Ukraine in its first year.

The “Camera Lucida” section will be screening, out of competition, seven exceptional works by renowned documentary filmmakers. Heinz Emigholz is featured here with two essayistic works on architecture in South America, parts 34 and 35 of his ongoing film series “Photography and Beyond”. Also included are a film collage about music by the French director Éric Baudelaire, Jumana Manna’s semi-documentary piece on the political issue of collecting herbs in the West Bank and a video correspondence between Chica Barbosa and Fernanda Pessoa, paying homage to female avant-garde directors.

The “Doc Alliance Award” selection will present three documentary films nominated from a competition held by the network of festivals to which DOK Leipzig and six other European documentary film festivals belong. The award-winning films were selected during the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022. “The Eclipse” by Nataša Urban received an honourable mention from the jury. “5 Dreamers and a Horse” by Vahagn Khachatryan and Aren Malakyan will also be screened in Leipzig, as will “The Pawnshop” by Łukasz Kowalski.

The new short film event “5x5 Shorts from the East” will be presented by DOK Leipzig in cooperation with its European partners the Kraków Film Foundation, the Czech Film Fund, the Slovak Film Institute, the Estonian Film Institute and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. These five institutions from central and eastern Europe have each contributed five outstanding works from their collections in order to create a vibrant showcase of the short film genre. These 25 documentary and animated films will be screened free of charge at the Polish Institute on 22 October and can be seen on a “hop on, hop off” basis. By hosting this event during this year’s festival, DOK Leipzig is expanding its programme of events for everyone who enjoys cinema.

The entire selection of films in the sections described here can be found in the attached PDF version of this press release.