After taking DOK Industry online in 2020 and hosting a hybrid version in 2021, this year the focus is back to in-person participation. Events will be held primarily on location from 17-21 October, with complementary formats such as livestreams, recordings and podcasts to make the programme accessible online. Following the festival week, additional online networking will be available for two days.
DOK Leipzig supports the Ukrainian film industry this year with an initiative created in cooperation with Docudays UA. Ukrainian filmmakers will be offered a platform to present their films and network with international industry representatives, forging partnerships that will strengthen the future of the country’s talents. During a DOK Industry Talk, Igor Savychenko (Babylon 13) and Lucie Kon (BBC Storyville) will present "One Day in Ukraine" (directed by Volodymyr Tykhyy), a successful direct collaboration between Ukrainian producers and a leading European broadcaster. The production serves as a case study for the discussion of how future collaborations between major broadcasters and Ukrainian or other regional filmmakers can be designed to gain visibility for their perspectives among a wider audience. In solidarity with the Docudays UA team, whose 19th edition could not take place in Kyiv this March due to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, DOK Leipzig will present the national competition as well as the festival's opening film.
With several films in the festival programme, a French-Canadian delegation of producers and a delegation from Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival, Canada’s documentary industry will also have a strong presence at Leipzig.
A second DOK Industry Talk will feature the Re-Present Media initiative, which works to promote personal stories by filmmakers from underrepresented groups in documentary and non-fiction media. The starting point for the discussion will be their study, "The Power of Personal Documentary Films”, which presents experiences of emerging documentary filmmakers of colour in the North American film industry. With this talk, DOK Industry aims to build a bridge to European filmmakers of colour who develop subjects from their own personal stories.
A new format is the DOK Archive Market. Representatives from important European archives and footage libraries will present their work and provide information about their collections, licensing costs and access modalities. British Pathé, Getty Images, Huntley Film Archives, SVT Archives and rbb media will all be present, among others. Participants can also sit down with archive researchers and producers for speed consultations on researching and licensing footage for their projects.
In a parallel programme of discussions and case studies, filmmakers will present their experiences of working with archival material. Dr. Adelheid Heftberger will lead a behind-the-scenes tour of the German Federal Archives in a keynote speech. A discussion on decolonizing archives introduces the perspectives of filmmakers from the global south on footage created by the colonial powers.
In addition, the newly founded GRAP (federal association of German Researchers and Archive Producers) will be launched officially at DOK Leipzig.
One case study will be devoted to Netflix's true-crime production "Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis", which uses only original footage to tell the story of a notorious 1988 hostage situation in West Germany. Mark Edwards (Netflix / Director of Original Documentary Features), Yan Schoenefeld (Film Five / Producer), post supervisor Juan Galva and archive producers Janne Gärtner and Monika Preischl will provide insights into their work on the film from different perspectives. "Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis" will be screened at the festival in advance. Representatives of the film team will be present for a Q&A.
A master class by Serbian documentary filmmaker Mila Turajlić concludes the DOK Archive Market and the DOK Talk "Conducting the Archive – Conversations on Footage" will bring the topic to a close.
Friday at DOK Industry will focus on animation. The DOK Talk "animation@DOK Leipzig – Conversations on a Film Genre" discusses the selection of animated films in this year's festival programme. Špela Čadež will present her methods and artistic techniques in a master class. AG Animationsfilm will address the question of the role festivals play for the overall success of short films, feature animation and even series. With "Animation Meets Doc", DOK Industry provides a networking opportunity for documentary filmmakers and animation artists. DOK Leipzig's film programme also features a series of programmes on the art of animation.
DOK Exchange will take place in hybrid form. At this year's conference, XR industry experts will give keynote speeches: Michael Nebeling (researcher and innovator of XR tools for safety and prototyping), Viviana Hochstätter (Creative Producer), Michaela Pňačeková (XR artist, producer, and researcher), Monika Masłoń (VR director, visual artist and art educator).They will talk about different areas of XR art, including expanding spatial imagination in the process of prototyping, healthy embodiment practices, the future of social VR, designing and curating emotional convergence of virtual and physical worlds, and finding alternative sources of financing for XR projects. At the online showcase, more than 20 experts will advise six innovative XR projects in the development phase.
The third season of the DOK Industry Podcast in collaboration with "What's Up with Docs" and the "Programmers of Color Collective" is released during the festival week. The episodes focus on representation and diversity in the documentary industry.
New this year is the DOK Film Market Lounge in the basement of the MdbK (Festival Centre). It offers a place for film viewing with one's own device, as well as encounters and meetings in a relaxed atmosphere.
Six prizes will be awarded at DOK Industry. For the first time, Unifrance will honour a French production or co-production at the DOK Co-Pro Market. The winner will be decided by the Co-Pro Jury and receive subtitles services (sponsored by TitraFilm) and a Unifrance membership for the French producer. The EWA Diverse Voices Award will honour a project by a female director who tells a story from a point of view thus far marginalised and underrepresented in the world of film (along with 1,000 euros and a year-long mentorship by DOK Leipzig). Further prizes are the Saxon Award for the Best Documentary Project by a Female Director (5,000 euros) and the Current Time TV Award for a project from Central or Eastern Europe (1,500 euros). One of the short film projects presented at DOK Short n’ Sweet will receive the Square Eyes Festival Consultation Award, which includes a tailor-made consultation on festival strategy. And our partner D-Facto Motion will once again award the D-Facto Motion Works-in-Progress Prize to one of the projects presented at the rough-cut presentations at DOK Preview Germany, providing post-production services valued at 10,000 euros.
The initiative to support Ukrainian filmmakers is funded as a special project "Docudays UA at DOK Leipzig" by Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Thanks to support by the Ukrainian Institute and the Goethe-Institut and Goethe-Institut in Exile, additional filmmakers and delegations from Ukraine will be able to participate in the festival and the industry offerings in Leipzig.
Find the full programme here: DOK Industry Programme A-Z
All dates and events: DOK Industry Schedule
