Leipzig 2023

Festival Reviews

DOK Leipzig 2023: The Verdict

by Adham Youssef | Oct 15, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, The Festival Verdict

With its socially and politically engaged agenda, DOK Leipzig’s 66th edition felt especially timely this year during a major period of global turbulence.

DOK Leipzig 2023: The Awards

by TheFilmVerdict | Oct 14, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Peter Mettler’s personal and poetic reflection ‘While the Green Grass Grows’ wins DOK Leipzig’s Golden Dove as best international documentary.

Director Lina Soualem Talks about Palestine’s Oscar submission ‘Bye Bye Tiberias’

by Adham Youssef | Oct 14, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Lina Soualem is touring global festivals with her very personal documentary’ Bye Bye Tiberias’, in “a moment of great tragedy and despair”.

El Shatt — A Blueprint for Utopia

by Adham Youssef | Oct 14, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

‘El Shatt’, a commune established by 28,000 Dalmatian Croats in colonial Egypt where they fled Nazi persecution in 1944, is remembered in Ivan Ramljak’s romanticized but well-researched documentary.

Play Dead!

by Stephen Dalton | Oct 14, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Documentary director Matthew Lancit addresses his existential health fears through horror movie tropes in ‘Play Dead!’. a compelling hybrid blend of non-fiction and playful fakery.

One Hundred Four

by Adham Youssef | Oct 13, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

‘One Hundred Four’ is the number of refugees stranded on one of the world’s deadly smuggling routes, the Mediterranean, in Jonathan Schörnig’s real-time documentary.

An Asian Ghost Story

by Ben Nicholson | Oct 13, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, Verdict Shorts

Mass wig exportation becomes the lens through which the fascinating, spectral doc An Asian Ghost Story explores Hong Kong’s late 20th-century modernisation and position between East and West.

White Angel — The End of Marinka

by Carmen Gray | Oct 13, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, Spotlight

A hard-hitting immersion into life and death under Russian invasion in eastern Ukraine, ‘White Angel – The End of Marinka’ is seen through an evacuation team’s GoPro helmet footage.

Johnny & Me

by Stephen Dalton | Oct 12, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Director Katrin Rothe’s animated bio-documentary hybrid ‘Johnny & Me’ brings to life the visually striking photomontage work of pioneering political artist John Heartfield.

Compound Eyes of Tropical

by Ben Nicholson | Oct 12, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, Verdict Shorts

One of the traditional fables of Sang Kancil, the wily mouse-deer, is brought exquisitely to life in Zhang Xu Zhan’s electrifying, otherworldly animation, Compound Eyes of Tropical

Going viral: an interview with ‘The Standstill’ director Nikolaus Geyrhalter

by Stephen Dalton | Oct 11, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

The feted Austrian documentary maker talks about capturing the Coronavirus crisis on camera, filming in perilous places, and his life-changing rejection from film school.

Beauty and the Lawyer

by Carmen Gray | Oct 11, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

A married LGBTQ+ couple worry if a future Armenia will honour the rights of their non-conventional family, in this intimately observational, activism-based doc.

Lumene: Privatisation

by Ben Nicholson | Oct 11, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, Verdict Shorts

In the complex and thought-provoking essay film, Lumene: Privatisation, David Shongo reflects on the commodification of cultural memory and the lasting impacts of insidious colonial impositions.

Togoland Projections

by Stephen Dalton | Oct 10, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

German director Jürgen Ellinghaus retraces the West African travels of a silent-era film director in ‘Togoland Projections’, a dry but engaging documentary about European colonialism’s screen legacy.

Zima

by Ben Nicholson | Oct 10, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, Verdict Shorts

The chill is both atmospheric and emotional in Zima, a scratchy, punkish, magical realist animation about life in a quiet, snow-laden fishing village.

TFV Talks To Maria Fredriksson about The Gullspång Miracle

by Carmen Gray | Oct 10, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, Spotlight

Maria Fredriksson plunged into the doc-making deep end for her debut feature ‘The Gullspång Miracle’, screening at DOK Leipzig.

The Standstill

by Stephen Dalton | Oct 9, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Austrian documentary maker Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s symphonic Covid chronicle ‘The Standstill’ plays like a slow-motion disaster movie with immersive widescreen visuals.

The Mother of All Hybrids

by Max Borg | Oct 9, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Asmae El Moudir’s ‘The Mother of All Lies’ embodies both sides of DOK Leipzig’s festival identity.

Three Windows on South West

by Ben Nicholson | Oct 9, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023, Verdict Shorts

An ostensibly simplistic documentary about a flat in Kyiv, Three Windows on South West uses incidental memories to paint a fleeting collective portrait of another time.

Vika!

by Stephen Dalton | Oct 8, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Polish director Agnieszka Zwiefka’s lively documentary ‘Vika!’ paints a celebratory but poignant portrait of Warsaw’s oldest club DJ.

Isabel Herguera, the Dream of a Master Animator

by Deborah Young | Oct 8, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Spanish animator, author and producer Isabel Herguera bings her first feature to DOK L — a masterfully evocative work on feminism and women’s lives, ‘Sultana’s Dream’.

The Last Relic

by Carmen Gray | Oct 8, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Masses seduced by past imperialistic might and activists seeking change present clashing public spectacles in Marianna Kaat’s punchy, broad-strokes doc on modern Russia.

“A festival is not there to create comfort”: An interview with DOK Leipzig artistic director Christoph Terhechte

by Stephen Dalton | Oct 7, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Leipzig 2023

The head of the world’s oldest documentary film festival talks controversial programming choices, magical public screenings, and the need to learn from uncomfortable history lessons.

The Gullspång Miracle

by Carmen Gray | Oct 7, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

Eerie, gripping and expertly crafted, Maria Fredriksson’s mind-bending doc takes myriad twists through a Nordic family mystery.

Knit’s Island

by Ben Nicholson | Oct 7, 2023 | Festivals, Leipzig 2023

A trio of documentarians traverse the forbidding digital landscapes of an online survivalist video game to explore the communities that have emerged there in this verité machinima, Knit’s Island.