DOK Leipzig’s industry programme is designed to “encourage collaboration rather than competition,” says DOK Industry head Nadja Tennstedt.
“Our formats like the DOK Co-Pro Market are not arena kind of set-ups, but rather intimate presentations and one-to-one meetings.”
This year’s DOK Co-Pro Market, the centrepiece of DOK Industry, received 366 submissions, more than ever before. Of those, 35 documentary projects from 30 countries have been selected for one-to-one meetings with potential international financing and co-production partners over two days in Leipzig between October 28 and 30.
“We have always been known for having a strong reach into Central and Eastern Europe as far as the submissions are concerned,” explains Tennstedt, who has been director of DOK Industry since April 2021. “But what was astonishing this year was the number of projects we received from Algeria, or projects with subjects dealing with Algeria.”
Three Algerian projects made it to the final selection, including Algerian-German co-production My Dad’s A Farmer, which sees El Kheyer Zidani revisiting his family’s struggles during the 1990s Algerian civil war. It is joined by two French-Algerian co-productions, Camélia Gadhgadhi’s Bitter Seed and Assia Tamerdjent’s Hana, Algeria and Me, the latter of which also address the theme of return to a homeland.
The DOK Co-Pro Market is complemented by two events, DOK Preview Germany (28 Oct) and DOK Preview International (30 Oct), which showcase completed films and works in progress looking for gap financing, distribution partners or festival premieres.
The six projects for DOK Preview Germany, including Martina Priessner’s The Moelln Letters and Alina Cyranek’s Curtains, were selected following an open call. The line-up for DOK Preview International was compiled in collaboration with eight partner initiatives such as Eurodoc, EFM Doc Toolbox Programme, Ex Oriente and Docs by the Sea, and includes Estonian filmmaker Margit Lillak’s latest feature documentary Becoming Roosi and Hong Kong-born director-cinematographer Kayla Tong’s debut documentary Home/Land.
Elsewhere, the third edition of DOK Archive market will continue its focus on the importance of archives and archival research.
This year, 13 archives including first-timers ZDF Studios and Saxony’s state programme SAVE alongside such regulars as the Imperial War Museums, Bundesarchiv and getty images, will be on hand to give advice to filmmakers in one-to-one consultations about researching and licensing archival footage for projects
Screenings of Stasi FC and the 1975/6 East German documentary Namibia - The Forgotten Colony will be followed by discussions about the practicalities working with archival footage as well as addressing the aesthetics and archive politics of (neo-) colonialism.
Zones of interest
One new introduction to this year’s DOK Industry programme is a Prototyping Zone, designed to complement the showcase of XR projects in development being presented by DOK Exchange XR. The Zone aims to bridge the gap between creators and a community of XR experts, distributors and audience by allowing accredited guests to test out XR content and report back to creators.
Two prototypes coming under examination in this first edition are Anne Fehres and Luke Conroy’s 16-minute VR work Revival Roadshow, and Laurien Michels’ AR fable The Room of Resonance.
Leipzig is also serving as a venue for the #DocSafe Roundtables collaborative initiative, organised by its founder Jane Mote along with consultant Marion Schmidt and EFM’s coordinator of diversity and inclusion Themba Bhebhe.
The Roundtables being held in Leipzig on October 29 will build on discussions from the safer spaces session at the Durban FilmMart in July, when issues covered included accountability and restorative justice, sexual harassment, abuse of power, and cultural safety.
“One reason that attracted me to Leipzig was that the Industry Programme had been very involved in inclusion and diversity strategies and initiatives,” Tennstedt recalls.
“#DocSafe was initiated by Jane with the aim of raising awareness and creating recommendations on best practices to make the documentary industry a safer shared space for everyone,” she explains. “It’s wonderful that #DocSafe travels to different markets and festivals collecting and discussing diverse perspectives and meeting regularly as working groups.”
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