South Korea’s DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (DMZ Docs) has overhauled its programme structure ahead of its 15th edition, which will open with Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory.
A total of 147 documentaries, comprising 83 features and 64 shorts, from 54 countries will be screened at the festival from September 14-21 at cinemas in and around Goyang city, near the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, in Gyeonggi Province.
The programme, which previously included the Global Vision and DMZ Open Cinema sections, have been reorganised into three competition strands: International, Frontier and Korean. Non-competitive strands will include Verite, Docufiction, Essay, Expanded and Special Exhibition.
“The sessions have been reorganised so that each highlights the different characteristics of the group of documentaries being introduced,” said DMZ Docs head of programming Jang Byung Won at a press conference in Seoul, where this year’s line-up was announced.
The festival will open with Chilean documentary The Eternal Memory, which won the grand jury prize when it premiered in the world cinema documentary competition at Sundance in January and went on to screen at the Berlinale and CPH:DOX.
It marks Alberdi’s follow-up to Oscar-nominated The Mole Agent and follows Augusto Góngora and Paulina Urrutia, whose 25 years together are challenged when Góngora, a noted cultural commentator, succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease and Urrutia becomes his loving carer. Urrutia, a former Chilean culture minister, is set to attend the festival.
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The 10 titles in International Competition includes the world premiere of From Okinawa With Love, a Japan-US co-production directed by Hiroshi Sunairi, which chronicles the experiences of an Okinawan photographer who spent her early 20s working as a barmaid in establishments catered specifically to African American GIs stationed in Okinawa.
The section also includes Alexander Mihalkovich and Hanna Badziaka’s Motherland, about the brutal military culture in Belarus, which won the main Dox:Award prize at CPH:DOX in March. Also competing are Agniia Galdanova’s queer performance artist and activist doc Queendom, which premiered at SXSW, and Sylvain George’s Locarno contender Obscure Night-Goodbye Here, Anywhere, which follows a young boy as he tries to cross from Morocco into Europe, will also compete.
The Frontier Competition includes Wang Bing’s Man In Black, which played in Special Screenings at Cannes; Teng Yuhan’s Gagland, which debuted at Rotterdam; and Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge 3, fresh from Locarno and Toronto.
This upcoming edition will be the first under Chang Hae Rang, a former professor and documentarian, who was appointed festival director in March.
The festival’s proprietary streaming platform VoDA (Vision of Documentary Archive) will return, featuring titles from the main programme as well as 11 works by documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty.
The opening ceremony of the 15th DMZ Docs will be held at Pyeonghwa Nuri Stage on September 14. The DMZ Docs Industry programme will run alongside the festival from September 15-19.
DMZ Docs 2023
International Competition
Another Body (US-UK)
Dirs Sophie Compton, Reuben Hamlyn
Bloodhound (Fr-Switz)
Dir Yamina Zoutat
Defectors (Kor-US)
Dir Kim Hyunkyung
From Okinawa With Love (Japan-US)
Dir Hiroshi Sunairi
Motherland (Swe-Ukr-Nor)
Dirs Alexander Mihalkovich, Hanna Badziaka
No Winter Holidays (Nepal-Kor)
Dirs Rajan Kathet, Sunir Pandey
Obscure Night-Goodbye Here, Anywhere (Fr-Switz)
Dir Sylvain George
Parallel World (Tai)
Dir Hsiao Mei-Ling
Pure Unknown (It-Switz-Swe)
Dirs Valentina Cicogna, Mattia Colombo
Queendom (US-Fr)
Dir Agniia Galdanova
Frontier Competition
Damnatio Memoriae (Thai-Ger)
Dir Thunska Pansittivorakul
Gagaland (China)
Dir Teng Yuhan
The Human Surge 3 (Arg-Port-Braz-Neth-Tai-HK-Sri Lanka-Peru)
Dir Eduardo Williams
Knit’s Island (Fr)
Dirs Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, Quentin L’helgoualc’h
Mambar Pierrette (Bel-Cam)
Dir Rosine Mbakam
Man In Black (Fr-US-UK)
Dir Wang Bing
Otro Sol (Chile-Fr-Bel)
Dir Francisco Rodriguez Teare
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