DOK.archive Pitch

Pitch for the award for archive and compilation film projects in development | sponsored by British Pathé and endowed with material supply worth 15,000 euros or 2,500 euros in cash

The DOK.archive Award honours outstanding archive and compilation film projects in development. High-quality archive footage is often invaluable for documentaries. The use of historical or commercial film excerpts on a larger scale, however, increases the required production budget substantially. With the DOK.archive Award, British Pathé and DOK.forum aim at promoting projects utilising licensed material and thus strengthening this traditional documentary genre.

Five projects will be presented to a jury of five during a live pitch event at the DOK.forum Marketplace. The winning project will receive British Pathé archive material worth 15,000 euros, alternatively, 2,500 euros can be paid out in cash.

The winner will be announced at the DOK.forum Award Ceremony on 4 May.

Selected projects 2024

DREAM OF GRAPE GARDENS, Director: Sahra Mani, Producer: Maéva Savinien

KAM LEILA KAM YOUM / HOW MANY NIGHTS HOW MANY DAYS, Director: Alaa Dajani, Producer: Kesmat Elsayed

MUTTER/SPRACHE / MOTHER/TONGUE, Director: Mala Reinhardt, Producer: Laura Kloeckner

THE OTHER FREUD, Director: Yair Qedar, Producer: Yair Qedar, Barbara Pichler

OUR SISTER ANGELA – BLACK POWER IN THE GDR, Director: Katharina Warda, Jascha Hannover, Producer: André Schäfer, Derren Lawford, Antonino D’Ambrosio, Michael Tyner

Jury and Moderation

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 (HFF)
Emanuel Rotstein, Head of Documentaries, ICON DOCS
Simon Witter, Licensing Executive, British Pathé

Moderated by Julia Teichmann, Head of Documentary, German Films

Event information

The event will be held in English.

The event will be held on site.

The event is open to Marketplace guests only.

  • In order for the event to appear in your appointment overview, please click on “Register now”.

Award Sponsor

British Pathé is considered to be the finest newsreel archive in the world. Now also representing the Reuters Historical Collection, it has become a one-stop archive for the story of the 20th century. This treasure trove of 220,000 films, unrivalled in their historical and cultural significance, is used extensively by broadcasters, production companies, corporations and museums, among many others.

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  • Fr., 03.05.24
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  • Fr., 03.05.24
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    HFF - Kino 1
Thomas Beyer
Commissioning Editor (MDR Department History and Documentaries)

Thomas Beyer studied journalism and geography and worked as a journalist, producer and documentary filmmaker in Leipzig and Hamburg. Since 2020 he is commissioning editor for documentaries at the MDR department "history and documentaries".

Karin Jurschick
Dept. IV, Documentary Film (HFF München)

Born 1959 in Essen, living and working in Munich and Berlin. Cultural editor. From 1990 director for public German TV. Lecturer at universities such as Cologne's Academy of Media Arts and the Universities of Bochum and Berlin. Since 2000 director and producer of full-length documentaries. Awards include: FIPRESCI, Berlinale Forum / ARTE-Dokumentarfilmpreis / Prix Regard Neuf, Visions du Réel / ADOLF GRIMME AWARD / First Documentary Award, HOT DOCS, Toronto. Since October 2017 professor for documentary film at the University for Film and Television (HFF) Munich.

Emanuel Rotstein
Head of Documentaries I Produzent (ICON DOCS a Brand of Bavaria Fiction)

As Head of Documentaries at ICON DOCS Emanuel Rotstein is responsible for the development and production of factual content. Most recently, the true-crime documentary “Car Park Murder – Who killed Charlotte Böhringer?” for Sky and the biopic “Ultra-Orthodox: Rabbi Akiva’s Journey to Freedom” for ZDF and 3sat were produced under Rotstein's leadership. During his A+E Networks tenure Rotstein was responsible for landmark docs such as “The Liberators: Why We Fought” about the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp by the US Army, “The Eleventh Day – The Survivors of Munich 1972”, “Guardians of Heritage” and “The Invisible Line – America’s Nazi Experiment” about the infamous Third Wave social experiment.

Simon Witter
Footage Archive / Licensing (British Pathé Ltd.)

A print journalist at 19, Simon Witter quickly developed a parallel career as a TV researcher, leading on to decades of work as an award-winning arts and entertainment Producer/Director. His documentaries have been broadcast in primetime on BBC1, ITV1, Sky Arts, C5, PBS, ARTE and RTL, and syndicated to 35 countries. As of April 2017, he is a Business Development Manager at British Pathé with responsibility for all German-speaking Europe eastwards to Russia, and UK production companies.