At the 67th edition of DOK Leipzig, three juries formed by esteemed filmmakers and arts professionals, along with a jury of audience members, will award short and feature-length animated and documentary films in competition.
The 2024 jury for the International Competition Documentary Film consists of Maria Bonsanti, Sylvaine Dampierre, Eric Hynes, Avi Mograbi, and Mark Edwards. The five jury members will present a Golden Dove to both the best feature documentary and the best short documentary, chosen from the 8 nominated feature-length and 11 short documentary films. A Silver Dove will also be awarded to the best feature-length documentary and the best short documentary by an up-and-coming director.
Maria Bonsanti has a long history working with international film festivals, including the Locarno Film Festival, Festival dei Popoli, and Cinéma du Réel, where she served as artistic director for five years. In 2017, she took on the role of programme director at EURODOC, and in early 2022, she was appointed deputy director of Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, a position she held until May 2024. Her fellow jury member is Sylvaine Dampierre, a Paris-based documentary filmmaker of Guadeloupe origin. Her films often “explore the motif of anchoring, of trace” — as she has put it — and have enjoyed success at festivals around the world, including FIDMarseille, FIDOCS, DOK Leipzig, and IDFA. Her latest feature documentary "Words of Negroes" earned the FIPRESCI prize at DOK Leipzig in 2021. Senior Curator of Film at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), Eric Hynes heads the annual First Look Festival and oversees year-round programming. A seasoned critic and journalist, he has contributed his writing to the New York Times, the Washington Post, Sight & Sound, and Reverse Shot, where he has been a staff writer since 2003. Regarded as one of Israel’s most distinguished filmmakers Avi Mograbi, now based in Portugal, is known for his unwavering commitment to social, cultural, and political justice in the Middle East, as well as his experimental approach and innovative contributions to cinematic language. His latest films, “Between Fences” (2016) and “The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation” (2021), both screened at Berlinale Forum.
An update on the jury for the International Competition Documentary Film:
Due to personal reasons, Akram Zaatari is unfortunately unable to fulfil his jury duties this year. DOK Leipzig thus welcomes Mark Edwards as a new member of the jury for the International Competition Documentary Film. The producer and broadcaster, originally from New York and living in Paris since 1995, served as the director of the USC Shoah Foundation in France — founded by Steven Spielberg — for four years before transitioning to work as an independent producer across Europe. He was a commissioning editor for international co-productions of documentaries at ARTE France and later led the European feature documentary slate at Netflix. Since 2024, Edwards has resumed his role as a producer and media consultant, while also lending his expertise as a member of several film commissions and teaching at top-tier educational institutions in France.
This year’s jury for the International Competition Animated Film includes Merlin Flügel, Isabel Herguera, and Nosipho van den Bragt. During the week-long festival, the jury members will view 5 nominated feature-length films and 20 short films and select the recipients of a Golden Dove for the best animated feature-length film and the best animated short film.
An animation director and visual designer from Berlin, Merlin Flügel has produced short films, which have garnered awards at international film festivals, including “ECHO”, which screened in competition at the Berlinale in 2013, and “Rules of Play”, which picked up the Jury Award at the Festival d’Animation Annecy in 2018. Along with Jonatan Schwenk and Marc Rühl, Flügel is part of the Gogo Tanda animation collective and is a co-founder of the Sweat&Tears Animation Filmfest Frankfurt. Esteemed Spanish animation film director Isabel Herguera, one of the two filmmakers to whom DOK Leipzig pays homage this year, has helmed a number of short films, including “Blindman’s Bluff” (2005), which was nominated for a Goya Award, and “Winter Love” (2015), among others. Herguera’s much-anticipated first animated feature, “Sultana’s Dream”, screened in the main competition of the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Her fellow jury member Nosipho van den Bragt is a co-founder of the award-winning high-end animation and VFX studio in South Africa, Chocolate Tribe. Under her leadership, Chocolate Tribe has not only produced work of the highest calibre but has also focused on harnessing young talent in the animation and VFX industry, including through its AVIJOZI initiative. Van den Bragt’s vision extends far beyond commercial success, as she is dedicated to social responsibility and community development, also mentoring women in animation globally.
Titles that win a Golden Dove for the best animated short film and those that receive a Golden Dove in the International Competition Documentary Film qualify for nomination at the annual Academy Awards, provided they meet the Academy’s requirements.
The jury for the German Competition Documentary Film will present a Golden Dove to the best feature-length documentary and the best short documentary. The jury members are Tilman König, Katrin Mundt, and Susanne Sachsse, who will choose a winner from the nominated 9 feature-length and 10 short documentary films from Germany.
Undertaking various roles in the field, including the curation of the Leipzig Experimental Film Festival ‘The Night of the Radical Film’ from 2006 to 2013, Tilman König has directed a number of notables works, including the documentary “Sour Strawberries” about the experiences of ‘guest workers’ in Japan, which he co-directed with Shingo Matsumura, and his 2024 documentary “König hört auf” (“Pastor Lothar Stops”), which received a nomination for the Grimme Prize. He is currently writing on a series and collaborating with Hanna Schygulla on an experimental documentary. Artistic Director of the European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück, Katrin Mundt has previously organised exhibitions and developed film and performance series for the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and the HMKV in Dortmund. She has also collaborated with various international festivals, serving on the selection committee for Duisburg Film Week and as a curator for Videonale in Bonn, goEast in Wiesbaden, and the 25FPS festival in Zagreb. Based in Berlin, actress Susanne Sachsse has worked with such artists as Yael Bartana, Zach Blas, Vaginal Davis, Ligia Lewis, and Natascha Sadr Haghighian, among others. She received the Premio Maguey Queer Icon Award at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in Mexico, and has starred in five films by Canadian queer filmmaker Bruce LaBruce.
Film enthusiasts and festival goers once again have the opportunity to serve on the jury for the Audience Competition. This year, the jury members are Linda Dombrowski, Maria Gallo, Sophie Görlipp, Maria Weiße, and Anna Wulffert. They will present a Golden Dove to one of the 10 nominated feature-length documentary or animated films.
The Golden and Silver Doves will be awarded to the winning films on Saturday, 2 November, at the Schaubühne Lindenfels in Leipzig.
Overview of all jury members at DOK Leipzig 2024: Awards & Jurys
