The 67th edition of DOK Leipzig opens this week with the world premiere of Thomas Riedelsheimer’s feature documentary Tracing Light. .
Christoph Terhechte, now in his fifth year as DOK Leipzig’s artistic director, talks to Screen about what he sees as the key elements of this year’s programme, the importance of raising the profile of animation and how he sees the festival evolving.
You had over 3,300 submissions to this year’s festival. What were the common trends you observed?
There were fewer political documentaries in the sense of confronting a certain problem like the far-right movements rising up in many countries. There are more films looking at what enriches our society, with many also focusing on the beauty of nature and why it needs to be preserved.
For me, the festival programme is about having as many voices as possible, showing the great variety of forms and the diversity of our world.
Which countries offered particularly strong submissions?
I am pleased that we have a strong presence of films from China and Latin America.
Of course, we give priority to films from Central and Eastern Europe because that has traditionally been a particular focus of the festival, and is the reason why many people come to Leipzig for these films.
France is always the strongest country in terms of output and participation in international co-productions, but we almost have to make sure that we don’t have too many French films in the programme!
Why did you choose Isabel Herguera and Dominique Cabrera as the subjects of this year’s homages?
We like to give the homages to people who are not as widely known by our audiences. The choice of Isabel Herguera — whose Sultana’s Dream screened in Leipzig last year — is in keeping with our focus on the importance of collaboration, that one shouldn’t just be the lone genius, but rather enter into a creative dialogue with others.
Dominique Cabrera is one of the criminally underrated European documentary filmmakers, and maybe that’s because she has always been switching between fiction and documentary. Her approach is a very cinephile one, so the master class she is giving will be about the relationship between cinephilia and documentary. This comes together in her new film, La Jetée, The Fifth Shot, which is about director Chris Marker and film history — as well as family history, because her cousin thinks he recognises himself in the film’s fifth shot.
What has been the response from the animation community to your decision to introduce a Golden Dove for the best feature-length animated film last year?
They were certainly pleased that there was one more festival taking them seriously. Animation has often felt like the fifth wheel in the past, but we want to make it a crucial wheel on the vehicle! We are looking to have animation and documentary come together on equal footing.
Our goal with the competition was to have five films which are as different as possible, from the Japanese film Ghost Cast Anzu, which initially looks like a children’s film but then has some really gruesome elements, and the Hungarian animadoc Pelikan Blue, to Heinrich Sabl’s Memory Hotel which has been some 25 years in the making. Olivia & The Clouds, an animated film from the Dominican Republic which is something that doesn’t happen every day. Last but not least, I am very curious to see how Animalia Paradoxa, which features quite a few live-action elements, will be discussed.
Your contract as artistic and managing director has been extended until the beginning of 2028. How would you like to see DOK Leipzig develop in the future?
One always has lots of ideas but I think that, structurally, we have reached what we wanted to do last year. I had big plans when I started five years ago, but then the pandemic came along and so we had to adjust. I am still happy with the decision to downsize the festival and show fewer films, although that doesn’t mean fewer seats. The idea from the get-go was to give animation a bigger role, and that was only possible after the pandemic when we could travel again.
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