Award winners DOK.forum 2024

Here we present the winning film projects of the DOK.forum industry platform 2024. Our warmest congratulations to the winners!

DOK.digital – Award for New Narrative Formats

THE TRUE FILM
Interactive VR experience by Christina Zimmermann

DOK.digital – Award for New Narrative Formats honours projects that sustainably change the structures of documentary narration with innovative methods. It is sponsored by the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Commercial Broadcasting (BLM) and is endowed with 2,500 euros and was awarded for the fith time this year.
The award goes to Christina Zimmermann for the interactive VR experience THE TRUE FILM: The avatars of Friedel and Lili Kracauer's restless souls explore the estate of the founder of film sociology.

From the jury's statement: (...) Christina Zimmermann's project THE TRUE FILM succeeds in making history and biographies tangible in VR. It poses the question of how a person's biography can be interpreted and understood on the basis of archives. (...) The award is intended to encourage further development of the storytelling of this prototype in order to convey the emotional aspects of the story as well as the media-theoretical aspects.

SALZSAMMLER by Nic Schilling received a special mention.

The jury says: We would also like to honour the project SALZSAMMLER with a special mention. We were very impressed by the user experience design. It encourages children to discover the museum in a playful way – an important approach that contemporary knowledge transfer requires!

Five nominated projects competed in a live pitch that the audience could follow on site and online. Afterwards, the jury chose the winners. The jury members were Marion Guth (Producer, abahn), Clarens Grollmann (Producer, K5 Factory), Max Permantier (Consultant for XR/VR/Web Series, FFF Bayern) Antonia Rahofer (Deputy Head of the Film Department, Federal Ministry Republic of Austria Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport) and Katharina Schulz (Funding Consultant, Bavarian Regulatory Authority for New Media).

DOK.archive Award

OUR SISTER ANGELA – BLACK POWER IN THE GDR
by Katharina Warda and Jascha Hannover

The DOK.archive Award is a promotional award for compilation films in development. High-quality archive footage is often almost invaluable for documentary films – and expensive. With the award, British Pathé and DOK.forum want to promote projects that work with licensed material. The winning project receives archive material worth 15,000 euros or alternatively 2,500 euros in cash.
This year the award goes to OUR SISTER ANGELA – BLACK POWER IN THE GDR by Katharina Warda and Jascha Hannover: In the 1970s, an enthusiastic solidarity movement supporting the Black US civil rights activist Angela Davis emerges in East Germany. Angela attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators during her visits to the country. But all this enthusiasm is deceptive... Co-director Katharina Warda tells this story from a personal perspective.

From the jury's statement: The use of archive material is of crucial importance for this project. (...) The filmmakers provide intelligent analysis of a historical event. One could dismiss Angela Davis' visit to the GDR as pure propaganda, but from today's perspective it is clearly more than that. (...) The filmmakers reclaim the narrative of the material and reinterprete and use it from the perspective of coming to terms with the history of of black Germans and people of colour in the former GD. (...)

The jury consisted of Thomas Beyer (Commissioning Editor, MDR Department History and Documentaries), Anke Mebold (Film conservator and preservator, DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum), Prof. Karin Jurschick (Professor of documentary film and television journalism, University of Television and Film Munich), Emanuel Rotstein (Head of Documentaries, ICON DOCS) and Simon Witter (Licensing Executive, British Pathé).

DOK.composition Award

KUĆE NA PIJESKU / HOUSES ON SAND
by Vid Begić, Composers: Dario Dodig and Nedjelko Kostanić

DOK.composition, the award for documentary film and composition, is dedicated to the unique artistic alliance between filmmakers and composers. The prize of 2,500 euros, donated by Sonoton Music, is awarded annually for the best musical concept. This year the DOK.composition Award goes to composer Zeina Azouqah for her musical concept for the film project KUĆE NA PIJESKU / HOUSES ON SAND by director Vid Begić. KUĆE NA PIJESKU / HOUSES ON SAND is the story about the consequences of the devastating 2020 Petrinja earthquake and the problems that were buried there over the past 30 years under the facade of post-war renewal. Surrounded by bleak ruins, manipulations and political games, the protagonists are struggling not to lose heart as life in their devastated hometown becomes ever harder for their families.

From the jury statement: The film presents a politically highly charged story from contrasting perspectives – which also requires a corresponding reactivity on the music side. It is no coincidence that the director and producer decided in favour of the two musicians Nedjeljko Kostanić and Dario Dodig, who have developed a convincingly realistic sound concept. Based on field recordings, they create impressive soundscapes that condense the story, which affects the protagonists in different ways.

The jury consisted of Nina Goslar (Editor), David Langhard (Musician, composer and producer), Grete Liffers (Producer, writer and director), Thomas Meinecke (Writer, musician and DJ) and Armando Merino (Conductor).

DOK.talent Award

POLITIK IST PERSÖNLICH (WT: BUILD A PARTY)
by Indira Geisel

The pitch competition DOK.talent Award offers students from the partner universities of DOK.fest München the opportunity to present their current projects to industry experts and receive valuable feedback. The most convincing project receives the award, which is donated by ndF Entertainment GmbH and endowed with 2,500 euros in research funding.
This year, the twelve-member jury honoured to the project POLITIK IST PERSÖNLICH by Indira Geisel (HFF München). 

From the jury's statement: (...) In a very close decision, the jury decided for a project in which the filmmaker portrays three generations of her own family – in which, as she says, “campaigning is a family affair“. Let it be known: POLITIK IST PERSÖNLICH, a film that engages with ambivalence, allows for critical distance and, on a personal level, seeks its own fresh perspective, is the well deserved winner. We congratulate Indira Geisel and her team on winning the DOK.talent Award 2024.

The twelve jurors were Katharina Bergfeld (Producer, Ma.ja.de), Petra Felber (Commissioning Editor, BR), Brigitte Hofer (Producer, Maximage), Peter Jaeger (Consultant, Jaeger Creative), Jutta Krug (Commissioning Editor, WDR), Esther van Messel (CEO, First Hand Films), Gülseren Ölcüm (Format Developer, ZDF), Julia Peters (Distributor, JIP Filmverleih), Ira Tondowski (Producer, Tondowski Films), Marcus Vetter (Commissioning Editor, SWR), Sven Wälti (Commissioning Editor, SRG SSR) and Jakob Zimmermann (Commissioning Editor, ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel).

Mentoring and Festival Awards