This year sees the establishment of the Committee of the International Leipzig Week for Documentary and Short Films". The President is Annelie Thorndike, with Ronald Trisch appointed Vice-President and Festival Director, deputy until 1983 is Karl Eduard von Schnitzler. Thorndike succeeds in introducing the "Day of anti-imperialist solidarity" to the festival, which becomes a permanent fixture in the forthcoming years.
However, the largely representative nature of this committee becomes apparent in the closing report of the organisers to the Central Committee of the SED on 14/12/1972: "The festival committee is primarily active externally (abroad). In its internal capacity the committee co-operates closely with the responsible departments of the Central Committee of the SED and those that have organised the festival to date".
The media contributes to Leipzig acquiring the reputation of a "political festival": "At no other festival is so little thought paid to films and so much to the political reality that encompasses us." [Süddeutsche Zeitung, 05/12/1973]
Reporting of the festival by West German broadcasters is reduced and the number of West German and European newspapers is lower than in previous years.
Golden Doves
ROMENSKAJA MADONNA (MADONNA AUS ROMENSK, USSR, Anatoli Slessarenko)
TAY HO - DAS DORF IN DER 4. ZONE (GDR, Gitta Nickel)
POVEST O PERVOI VESNE (ERZÄHLUNG ÜBER DEN ERSTEN FRÜHLING, USSR, Eva Vermiseva)
SÜDVIETNAM - A QUESTION OF TORTURE (GB, Michael Beckham)
TIENG TRONG TRUONG (DER KLANG DER SCHULTROMMEL, Vietnam, Dang Thanh Huyen)
ZAVTRASNAJA ZEMLJA (DIE ERDE VON MORGEN, USSR, A. Solosov)
Silver Doves
VRCHOLKY STROMOV (DER WIPFEL DER BÄUME, CSSR, Dusan Trancik)
LOWCA (DAS FANGSCHIFF, Poland, Sergiusz Sprudin)
RUNAN CAYCU (Peru, Team)
EL ORO ES TRISTE (TRAURIGES GOLD, Colombia, Luis Alfredo Sanchez)
ON THE NILE (AM NIL, Egypt, Hashim El-Nahdas)
I VART LAND BÖRJAR KULORNA BLOMMA (IN UNSEREM LAND BEGINNEN DIE KUGELN ZU BLÜHEN, Sweden, Lennart Malmer and Ingela Romare)
AHDAFJ STRATIEGIEH (STRATEGISCHE ZIELE, Syrian Arabian Republic, Al-Faisal Yassiri)
SEPTEMBRE CHILIEN (CHILENISCHER SEPTEMBER, France, Bruno Muel und Theo Robichet)
CILI: VREMJA BOR'BY, VREMJA TREVOG (CHILE - ZEIT DES KAMPFES, ZEIT DER UNRUHE, USSR, D. Barscevski and O. Trifimova)
MOSAMBIQUE - DER KAMPF GEHT WEITER (GDR, Ulrich Makosch, Hans Andersohn and more)
Special prize by the International Jury
EL TIGRE SALTO Y MATO, PERO MORIRA ... MORIRA (DER TIGER SPRANG UND TÖTETE, ABER ER WIRD STERBEN ... STERBEN, Cuba, Santiago Alvarez)
ICH WAR, ICH BIN, ICH WERDE SEIN (GDR, Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann)