– The jubilee edition will unspool under the motto “Show up or it doesn’t count!” and feature 105 films across eight competition sections
2m² by Volkan Üce
Kosovo’s largest film event and one of the biggest documentary festivals in Southeast Europe, DokuFest Prizren has announced the competition line-ups for its jubilee 25th edition, set to run from 7-15 August.
Under the motto “Show up or it doesn’t count!”, referring to the persistence and defiance that have characterised the festival since its rough beginnings in a war-devastated country, and which can certainly be applied to the current state of the world, DokuFest Prizren will screen 105 short, medium-length and feature documentaries, as well as short fiction and experimental films, across eight competition sections.
Nine films will vie for the festival’s arguably most important award in the Balkan Dox section: Volkan Üce‘s IFFR title 2m²; CPH:DOX entries Something Familiar by Rachel Taparjan and Yugo Goes to America by Aleksa Borković and Filip Grujić; Burak Çevik‘s FIDMarseille competitor As the Spring Arrives, Water Recalls the Nomads; Miloš Jaćimović‘s Beldocs prizewinner Sunset; as well as both Croatian films that world-premiered at DOK Leipzig – Srdjan Kovačević‘s The Thing to Be Done and Ivan Ramljak‘s Golden Dove winner Peacemaker. Two films not produced in the region but addressing issues relevant to it, Ronald Sejko‘s Venice and Jihlava title A State Film and Elena Dorfman‘s The Dream & The Lie (USA), complete the line-up.
The International Feature Dox competition comprises ten titles, including CPH:DOX top prize winner Whispers in May by Dongnan Chen and NEXT WAVE AWARD winner Dream of Another Summer by Irene Bartolomé; IDFA entries Amilcar by Miguel Eek and Paikar by Dawood Hilmandi; Michał Marczak‘s Sundance premiere Closure; Sebastian Brameshuber‘s Berlinale Panorama hybrid London; Xisi Sofia Ye Chen‘s Visions du Reel top winner From Dawn to Dawn; and Cannes ACID title Into the Jaws of the Ogre by Mahsa Karampour.
The Human Rights Dox section consists of eight films, from Mehrdad Oskouei and Soraya Akhlaghi‘s IDFA-winning A Fox Under a Pink Moon, through The Phantom Pain of Rojava by Maryam Ebrahimi and American Doctor by Poh Si Teng, which received the main prize and special mention in CPH:DOX’s HUMAN:RIGHTS competition, respectively, Nathan Grossman‘s Amazomania, which won the inaugural FIPRESCI Prize at the same festival, as well as Alisa Kovalenko‘s Traces, winner of Panorama Audience Award at the Berlinale. Sheffield entry A City in the Forest by Lev Omelchenko and Nolan Huber, Jonas Spriestersbach‘s Meanwhile in Namibia from Visions du Réel and Sabine Groenewegen‘s The Clearing from FIDMarseille complete the line-up.
Other competitive sections at DokuFest are Green Dox, Balkan Short Dox, International Short Dox, International Shorts and the National Competition.
