Private Stories, Politics and Everyday Heroes

DOK Leipzig remains true to its reputation as a highly political festival that gives young filmmakers a chance. This year, over 2,000 accredited attendees visited the 68th edition of the festival. The mostly young audience ensured many sold-out screenings, partly due to a slightly streamlined program. The mix of documentary and animated films once again fostered a stimulating exchange of ideas. Festival director Christoph Terhechte is leaving Leipzig after six productive years. His successor is Ola Staszel, the former director of the Neisse Film Festival, located on the German-Polish-Czech border, who will undoubtedly strengthen the festival’s focus on filmmaking in Eastern Europe – a long-standing focus of the festival.

The International Documentary Competition featured nine feature-length films, each very different in style, aesthetics, and themes. The most opulent visuals were once again provided by Nikolaus Geyrhalter with his snow-focused film Melt (Austria, 2025). With his team, he discovered extraordinary locations all over the world: people living alongside the forces of nature speak their statements about climate change directly into the camera, with a black image at each cut. During the five years of production, Geyrhalter’s purpose was to shoot winter landscapes while they still exist. The glacier in Iceland is already beginning to melt, and skiing lifts on the Dachstein are being dismantled because the season gets shorter and shorter, making operations unprofitable. In France, people attempt to create a ski circuit using a battery of snow cannons. The effects of climate change are also being felt at the German research station Neumayer III in Antarctica. Without commentary or a lot of facts, Geyrhalter lets us feel these changes with his images.

Serge-Olivier Rondeau also explores nature in The Inheritors (Les héritiers, Canada 2025). He films a colony of ring-billed gulls that have resettled on an island near Montreal. It’s not the usual wildlife documentary, such as the ones we have learn to expect from TV. He forgoes commentary and music, focusing entirely on the images and sounds of the gulls. The colony is being scientifically monitored, which repeatedly leads to disturbances. A landfill lies near the island, where the birds constantly find food. Attempts are made to drive them away with gunfire and a hunting falcon. This provides spectacular aerial shots, but the effectiveness of these methods in controlling the gulls is questionable.

Green Desert (Desierto verde, Chile 2025) by Meliza Luna Venegas intertwines her family history with the transformation of Chile’s forests into monocultures of pine trees, which have become a major export commodity for the country. It’s a small farmers’ struggle against the government and international corporations that brutally pursue their interests. The footage of the pristine forests is from recent decades, therefore historical. They no longer exist in that form. The director attempts to protest through artistic actions using her own body. Her uncle drags a wooden cross through the desolate landscape, which has become a green desert.

Family films were a focus of this year’s international competition. Caroline Guimbal delivers a very personal and poetic film with The Red Moon Eclipse (L’éclipse de la lune rouge, Belgium, 2025). The film was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize (see article by Saleem Albeik). In Clan of the Painted Lady (Canada 2025), Jennifer Chiu traces the history of her family, which is from the Hakka ethnic group in Asia, who are now scattered across the globe. As compelling as her own family’s stories are, she opens the film up to more and more other aspects. As a result, it loses some of its power, and the typical Hakka food becomes the unifying element. An abandoned hotel in Lisbon is the backdrop for A Scary Movie (Una pelicula de miedo, Spain, Portugal 2025) by Sergio Oksman. Contrary to what the title might suggest, it’s not a horror film; instead, the focus is on the relationship between a father and son. However, they don’t actually grow closer, and much remains unresolved. Intriguing are early fiction films about a serial killer in Lisbon who threw his victims from an aqueduct. The father, a film director, had intended to make a documentary about this, which was never completed. In the German Competition, we found Sediments (Sedimente, Switzerland, Germany 2025), in which Laura Coppens portrays her grandfather at the end of his life. His story reflects the turbulent history of Germany and its political/economic system turnover. The director is remarkably lenient with him, even when it becomes clear that he worked for the East German Stasi.

Back to the International Competition, The Thing to Be Done (Ono što treba činiti) (Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia 2025) by Srdan Kovačević, a very political film about a tiny workers’ rights office in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The team fights daily for fair wages, compliance with the most basic regulations, and support for those who are not among the privileged in today’s economic system – quite the opposite. In some cases, they have to pay to get work. A port has been working with freelancers for over twenty years. In the end, they win a trial supported by the workers’ rights office and are forced to be hired. A very intense and at times agitated film, but important – the office and its team are heroes of the working class.

The debate surrounding the restitution of ethnographic objects is fueled by Elephants & Squirrels (Switzerland 2025) by Gregor Brändli (see article by Jan Storø). In Leipzig, the film was awarded a Silver Dove. Croatian director Ivan Ramljak follows a radical concept for his film Peacemaker (Mirotvorac, Croatia 2025) about the assassination of Josip Reihl-Kir, the police chief of the city of Osijek in eastern Croatia. On July 1, 1991, he was shot dead by a police officer during a traffic stop. Ramljak depicts this event with blurry video footage and overlays it with interviews of eyewitnesses, which are only shown at the end. One needs to be an expert on Croatia to fully grasp the significance of their statements and the events themselves. The International Jury honored this experiment with a Golden Dove as the best film in competition.

By Kay Hoffmann
Edited by Anne-Christine Loranger
Copyright FIPRESCI