As reported earlier (see NEWS 02/11/2009), DOK Leipzig was in New Zealand as a guest of the Documentary Trust New Zealand and the Goethe Institute Wellington.
From 02/20 to 03/01/2009, our programmer Grit Lemke presented DOK Leipzig at various events and pitchings, was a jury member of the International Short Film Competition at the DOCNZ 2009 Documentary Film Festival and met a host of filmmakers, producers and television editors. Her talks centred mainly on Germany’s documentary film production and landscape as well as openings for co-operations and co-productions. In addition, Grit Lemke presented a programme of German documentaries curated by her.
What emerged most clearly in the pitchings and the festival programme in particular was that New Zealand – in view of its 4 million inhabitants – shows an amazingly high standard and a great variety of documentary films. Compared to Germany, funding structures are less developed, while, like elsewhere, broadcast slots are continuously shrinking.
At the pitching session for the Goethe Institute Wellington’s scholarship, a three-month stay in Germany to work on a documentary film project, a series of projects offering different perspectives on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall were pitched. The winner will visit DOK Leipzig in the course of her stay in Germany and will get all our support in making contacts and networking.
Generally, the high level of quality at the pitchings was amazing. Many of the projects incorporated references to Germany or Europe and in some cases, DOK Leipzig has already been able to help establish contacts with production companies.
The New Zealand Minister for Broadcasting, Dr. Jonathan Coleman, the director of the Goethe Institute Wellington, Christoph Mücher, and representatives of the German Embassy in New Zealand were present at the double opening of the festival and its “Spotlight: Germany” section. In their opening speeches, both the minister and festival director Dan Shanan emphasized DOK Leipzig’s contribution as a partner in the development of an internationally competitive and well-connected New Zealand documentary film production. In eight screenings in the four biggest cities of New Zealand, the German film programme provided insights into contemporary Germany and the range of its documentary filmmaking. The films“Sportsfreund Lötzsch“ (Sportsman Loetzsch, Sandra Prechtel/Sascha Hilpert), „Zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort“ (Wrong Time, Wrong Place, Tamara Milosevic), „Rhythm Is It!“ (Thomas Grube/Enrique Sánchez Lansch) und “Full Metal Village“ (Sung-Hyung Cho) met with great approval in the screenings, many of them completely sold out. All in all a marked interest in Germany, especially its most recent history (the GDR, the reunification) became apparent. Most of the audiences were very interested in the post-screening talks and some lively discussions took place.
Even at the other end of the world, DOK Leipzig is highly regarded as one of the foremost platforms for documentary films and an excellent place for presenting and networking projects. DOK Leipzig will continue to endeavour to satisfy the great demand for information and films from Germany and for co-operation opportunities.
Thanks to DOCNZ (Dan Shanan, Alex Lee, Diana Kluge) and the Goethe Institute Wellington (Christoph Mücher, Ulrike Rosenfeldt).