DOK Leipzig presents its 60th-anniversary edition line-up
- The motto for this year’s edition of the world-famous German gathering is “After the fear”
![DOK Leipzig presents its 60th-anniversary edition line-up](imgCache/2017/10/18/1508320826566_0570x0400_0x0x0x0_1679291386487.jpg)
Sports champions, ancient traditions and stories from the past, but also life in modern-day Cuba, DR Congo and India, are just some of the issues set to be tackled in the International Competition of DOK Leipzig, which runs from 30 October-5 November 2017. The 60th edition of the festival will kick off with the German crime story Betrug by David Spaeth, about an impostor who enjoys fabricating facts to position himself in a better light, but who subsequently becomes a criminal. The 12-strong line-up of documentary features that will be competing for the Golden Dove in the International Competition includes The Congo Tribunal [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Milo Rau.
Among the renowned filmmakers who will be presenting their new works at DOK Leipzig’s anniversary edition are Shelly Silver with A Strange New Beauty and Kamal Swaroop with Pushkar Myths, which leads the viewer on a cinematic journey into the world of gods in India. A different side of India is shown by first-time director Rahul Jain in the Indian-German-Finnish co-production Machines [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which lays bare the monotony of life and work in a gigantic garment factory in Gujarat, portrayed as a place of dehumanisation.
DOK Leipzig, whose motto this year is Nach der Angst (“After the fear”), is presenting 113 world and international premieres in the official selection of its anniversary edition. Altogether, the programme offers 166 films and interactive works from 53 countries. “We are delighted that we have discovered some great newcomers,” says festival director Leena Pasanen. “There is a huge range of styles and a remarkable consistency in terms of how the filmmakers are telling their stories.” Several docs deal with right-wing populists, but also with protests against xenophobic acts. “These films are crucial because they encourage us to reflect and to adopt a point of view.”
There will also be a number of well-known filmmakers sitting on the juries at DOK Leipzig, such as director Heddy Honigmann, producer Luciano Rigolini and new-wave musician Anne Clark, who is presenting the world premiere of her film Anne Clark – I’ll Walk Out Into Tomorrow out of competition in the International Programme. Further jurors include filmmaker Maike Mia Höhne, who also curates the Berlinale Shorts section, and animation director Elie Chapuis, who was the animator behind the hit stop-motion puppetry film My Life as a Zucchini [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Claude Barras
film profile].
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