25th Munich DOK.fest - a summary

DOK.fest's special anniversary year was a huge success: Munich was glowing in orange and 11,500 cinemagoers flocked to see the 72 best documentary films of the year from throughout the world.

The International Documentary Film Festival then went on tour with six selected films through five Bavarian towns. The DOK.tour - the "festival on the road" - offered a wide and engaged audience throughout Bavaria the possibility of watching outstanding documentary films.

The new dual leadership of DOK.fest struck a positive balance. The Artistic Director Daniel Sponsel (on the right) explained: "I am delighted about how well the audience took to the new format of DOK.fest, with the section DOK.guest, containing films from and about Africa, as well as the Volker Koepp retrospective. Also, DOK.education, the morning programme of films for schools, was a real shock success with 21 school classes, project groups and film courses from various secondary schools in attendance." The new Managing Director Christian Pfeil (on the left) added: "We tried to achieve a balance between preserving as much as possible of what's good about DOK.fest, while also trying out new ideas. The festival was more challenging than expected but our hard work, and that of our team, was worth it: there was lots of positive feedback from our guests and from our audience."

Volker Koepp (left) and Boris Hars-Tschachotin (right, SERGEJ IN THE URNE, Winner BLM Film Award 2010)

Interview with Volker Koepp at DOK.retro.

You will find full information on the prize-winning films and jury statements here.

An interview with Claudine Bories & Patrice Chagnard (LES ARRIVANTS), winners of the International Competition with the Documentary:Filmaward:2010 of the Bayerischen Rundfunk and Telepool GmbH, can be found in the Video-DOK.Blog.