48 TH INTERNATIONAL LEIPZIG FESTIVAL FOR DOCUMENTARY AND ANIMATED FILM
03 - 09 October 2005

The Festival has a new name DOK Leipzig replacing the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film'

As of 2005 'DOK Leipzig - the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film' will commence one day earlier (Monday, 3rd of October to Sunday, 9th of October), so that the awards ceremony can take place on Saturday. Sunday will be audience day - naturally including presentation of all award-winning films. But that’s not all - we also have a new name: DOK Leipzig! The succinct abbreviation still stands for the most important and interesting documentary film productions of the year, the most exciting productions of young and upcoming film-makers, the most lively discussions and workshops, fantastic animated films and thrilling rediscoveries.

In its 50th year, Dok Leipzig is enhanced by new offers for the international and German documentary film industry. The festival invigorates its international standing, secures programme quality and forges links to new financing sources. Leipzig is creating the central annual meeting point of the German documentary film industry.

- The DOK Market comprises 500 current documentary film productions from all over the world, classified according to genre and presented in a separate catalogue. All films from the official festival programme will be provided as well as around 300 additional current documentaries selected from all submitted works. Focus lies on productions from German speaking countries and dynamic markets of central and eastern Europe as well as Asia.

- DOK Ideas I: "The Art of Pitching" - Final pitching of the Discovery Campus Masterschool 2005 (3rd - 4th of October): it is for the first time that the renowned forum for idea exchange takes place parallel to the festival. In search for international partners to realise their film projects, film-makers and producers from all over Europe will present 20 new documentary film projects to international commissioning editors and approximately 170 accredited professionals.

- DOK Ideas II: "Exploring New Territories" - International Co-Production Meeting (5th of October):
After a comprehensive presentation of German documentary slots on 4th of October, the festival offers an additional platform with its exclusive co-production meeting, where German editors can exchange ideas and discuss projects with their colleagues from Europe, North America and Asia.

New festival centre at the "Leipziger Museum der Bildenden Künste"
This new and very exciting place for arts and artistic events in Leipzig opened last winter. Our festival centre with reception, press centre, Café and DOK Market will be accommodated in the new museum from 3rd to 9th of October 2005! We are looking forward to meeting you at the new festival centre - a place of information, exchange of thought, inspiring discussion and networking.

New Prizes and Sponsors | DEFA-Foundation awards the "DEFA-Förderpreis" for the first time
At this year’s festival, DEFA-Foundation - one of our long-term partners - will for the first time award a funding prize. The award, worth 4,000 Euro, is predominantly directed at German film-makers and intends to support film authors and directors in preparing and financing their next film project.

The Programme 2005: about Love, Politics and Pioneers

Alongside always exciting national and international competitions (presented at the press conference on 8th September) there are further programme highlights such as: retrospectives, a homage and special programmes. Here a little appetizer:

"Rote Filme sieht man besser" - Political Documentary Film of the waning 20th Century
In collaboration with the German Documentary Filmmakers Association (AG DOK) and the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the retrospective, traditionally organised by the Federal Film Archive, is this year dedicated to political documentary film of the past 25 years in Germany: exciting documentary films reflecting developments in east and west Germany leading to an emerging new world order at a turn of the century.

Heart Flickering - Tales of Love
Last year's Special Programme 'Humour in documentary film' had led to sold out cinemas. 2005 will be determined by longing, passion, jealousy, disappointment and ecstasy - with us you’ll discover strong emotions in powerful films about love.

Homage to Albert Maysles
Albert Maysles is one of the pioneers of the American "Direct Cinema" movement, revolutionising documentary film in the 60’s in terms of content and aesthetics thanks to new mobile cameras and synchronous sound recording. We’ll show his most influential films and are very pleased to be able to welcome him at the Leipzig festival this year where he will hold a "master class".

FOCUS CHINA
As a result of a co-operation agreement concluded in October 2004 with the Chinese festival GZDOC in Guangzhou, we will dedicate an extensive Special Programme to the current Chinese documentary film, expected to be very exciting especially due to some totally independently produced films. A number of film-makers, festival and TV representatives from China will be present in Leipzig from 3rd to 9th of October.

Polish Animated Film
Drawing from their rich national tradition of graphic arts, avant-garde theatre and puppet theatre, Polish film-makers of the past fifty years have produced some of the technically most sophisticated, most dark-satirical and fascinating animated films world-wide. After guest performances at the MoMa in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, this very exciting programme will be presented in Germany for the first time!

The DEFA-Studio for Trick-Film
It has become tradition for the German Institute for Animation Film (DIAF), based in Dresden, to contribute each year special programmes from its extensive archive to the Leipzig festival. This way we'll keep the heritage of the once largest German trick-film studio alive and provide Leipzig audiences with real rarities of German animated film.

PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS | German Premiere and Exclusive-Workshop
In the context of the festival, PIXAR presents its new short film "One Man Band" exclusively to Leipzig audiences. But not only that: film-makers allow the audience to look behind the scenes of "One Man Band" and explain individual steps of the production process. Furthermore, one of the directors, Andrew Jimenez, will offer a workshop for animation film-makers.