Three juries comprised of distinguished filmmakers and arts professionals, as well as a jury of audience members, will be presenting awards for short and feature-length animated and documentary films in competition at the 66th edition of DOK Leipzig. The jury members will bring together diverse perspectives on contemporary international documentary and animated filmmaking.
The 2023 jury of the International Competition Documentary Film is comprised of Jennifer Fox, Radu Jude, Marie-Pierre Macia, Steven Markovitz and Rima Mismar. These five jury members will award a Golden Dove to one short film and one feature-length film from among 10 feature-length documentary films and 13 short films that have been nominated. One Silver Dove each will be awarded to one short and one feature-length film by an up-and-coming director.
Since making her directorial debut with “Beirut: The Last Home Movie” (1988), writer, director and producer Jennifer Fox has regularly been honoured with international festival and industry awards for her groundbreaking cinema and television productions. In 2018, she directed her first feature film, “The Tale”. Her fellow jury member Radu Jude, from Romania, has also received numerous prestigious awards for his work as a director, including a Golden Bear at the Berlinale for the social satire “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” (2021). His most recent film, the comedy “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” (2023), was awarded the Special Jury Prize at Locarno. As director of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes, Marie-Pierre Macia championed the directing debuts of such renowned contemporary filmmakers as Sofia Coppola and Carlos Reygadas. Macia’s impressive filmography as a producer includes “The Turin Horse” (2011) by Béla Tarr and “Mariner of the Mountains” (2021) by Karim Aïnouz. Macia also founded “Crossroads”, the co-production forum at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. Steven Markovitz, a co-founder of the production company Big World Cinema (1994) and the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival (1999), has been making an important contribution to African cinema for more than 25 years. He has been producing and distributing feature, documentary and short films by African directors that challenge the predominant image of that continent. Film critic and writer Rima Mismar served on the selection committees of various festivals prior to joining the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) as manager of its film programmes in 2011. Since 2016, she has been the organisation’s director.
This year, the jury of the International Competition Animated Film is comprised of Pavel Horáček, Anne Isensee and Irina Rubina. During the week-long festival, they will view 23 works that have been nominated and will choose the recipient of the new Golden Dove for an animated feature film as well as of the Golden Dove for an animated short film.
Pavel Horáček, a sought-after specialist writer and festival jury member, was programming director of the International Animation Film Festival AniFest in Teplice and has held the same position at IFAF Anifilm, first in Třeboň, now in Liberec, since 2013. Anne Isensee’s films have been a constant at DOK Leipzig for a number of years. The short films by this Berlin-based animator and director of animated films have been screened at international festivals, earning several awards, including a Golden Dove in the German Competition for “Megatrick” in 2017. Since 2021, Isensee has been a board member of AG Animationsfilm, the German branch of ASIFA, the Association internationale du film d’animation. Irina Rubina is an animator as well as a director and producer of animated films. Through her company, iraru.films, she produces and realises short films and music videos as well as hybrid and collaborative projects that explore the boundaries between animation, film, performance, music and dance. She has also been a board member of AG Animationsfilm since 2021.
Films that earn the Golden Dove for a short animated film or either Golden Dove in the International Competition Documentary Film qualify for nomination for the annual Academy Awards, provided they meet the Academy’s requirements.
The jury of the German Competition Documentary Film will award a Golden Dove for a feature-length documentary film and a Golden Dove for a short documentary film. Birgit Kohler, Claus Löser and Serpil Turhan are the jury members who will view and award these nine feature-length and eight short film productions from Germany.
Birgit Kohler is the head of programming at Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin. She was a member of the Berlinale Forum selection committee from 2002 to 2019 and as its interim director was responsible for its main programme in 2019. Her curatorial work focuses on contemporary documentary film and various artistic perspectives in international contemporary cinema. The curator, author, filmmaker and musician Claus Löser has been the head of programming at Kino Brotfabrik in Berlin since 1990 and a freelance film critic since 1992. In 1996 he founded the archive Ex.Oriente.Lux to collect and preserve GDR underground film, and published the book “Gegenbilder” (Counter-images). In 2009, Löser curated the Berlinale retrospective “Winter adé”. Serpil Turhan, a visiting professor in the media art/film programme at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe from 2019 to 2023, first acted in films by Thomas Arslan and Rudolf Thome between 1997 and 2005. Later she studied with Thomas Heise and others and graduated in 2013 with the documentary film “Dilim Dönmüyor – Meine Zunge dreht sich nicht” (Dilim Dönmüyor – My Tongue Does Not Turn). Her feature-length documentary “Rudolf Thome – Überall Blumen” (Flowers Everywhere) premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 2016. In 2020, her film “KÖY” opened the Duisburger Filmwoche.
Film buffs and long-time festivalgoers once again have the opportunity to be on the jury for the Audience Competition. Billie Bauermeister, Fritz Czaplinski, Anna Eulitz, Charlotte Hennrich and Annegret Weiß will be representing the DOK Leipzig audience as jury members this year. They will award a Golden Dove to one of eight feature-length documentaries that have been nominated.
The Golden and Silver Doves will be presented to the winning films on Saturday, 14 October 2023, at 7 pm at the Schaubühne Lindenfels in Leipzig’s West End.
Overview of all jury members at DOK Leipzig 2023: Awards & Jurys
