This month, the Berlin film calendar gets a brand new event: Dokumentale (10 – 20 October), a documentary film and media festival that takes on the classic form with a big goal. The project supports documentary filmmakers in creating political awareness and social change with their art. Alongside screening their films, the festival offers new ways to connect with the movies on offer: through print, VR, podcasts and installations, all helping guide the audience into a fully immersive experience.
It’s definitely a new approach, as most festivals have a really straight line in their programming.
Dokumentale’s mission is for the work it showcases to have a life after the credits roll – but with a project that’s such an undertaking, it’s not yet clear what impact they’ll have on Berlin’s cinema landscape. We sat down with the festival’s artistic director, Anna Ramskogler-Witt, and impact director, Vivian Schröder, to find out what this ambitious new festival has in store.
Dokumentale is new on the scene. Can you tell us how it came to be?
Anna Ramskogler-Witt: So Vivian and I founded the Good Media Network in late spring this year to support films in their impact campaigns from a film industry perspective. We got a lot of very positive feedback, and this supported our feeling that Berlin was lacking something for documentaries and nonfiction. We both love documentaries, nonfiction books and podcasts, so we had this crazy idea to take on the quest to do a film and media festival that combines all these elements, in a really tight amount of time. We got some amazing people on board to support us, and the idea of Dokumentale was born.
Vivian Schröder: What is driving Anna and I is the question: What can we really do for documentaries? What is necessary to society these days? We thought if we curate the festival’s films topic-wise, and then provide diversity within nonfiction storytelling, people can really dive in and understand certain topics much better. Which is something that’s lacking these days as people are just reading headlines and not digging further into stories. It felt important for us to bring in experts and voices to talk about the films who can give different perspectives, and I think that’s the exciting thing that we’re able to explore.
You mentioned impact film – what does that mean?
AR: In short, we run a film lab and pitch [day]. We had the lab earlier this year and the pitch will happen during Dokumentale. We’re supporting six film projects in developing an impact campaign – that means if we have a film on a certain topic, for example social inclusion of minorities, we can use this film for change in society, to create a sustainable journey for the film to increase awareness on its themes. We can use these works to create change.
The film is combined with things like messaging, or a petition – finding the correct topical partners for their messages, this starts the change process. For example, we’ve got an incredible film about how communities are facing struggles with lithium mining. The filmmakers will use the film to lobby this topic, because yes, electric cars are a great change, but at what cost to those communities?
Nonfiction is so beautiful in all its forms, and so we wanted to open that up further.
VS: My background as a documentary filmmaker, author and producer led me to feel frustrated that you do not have much say after a film comes out on how it’s [received]. I mean, things have changed with the move to online; I released my last film in 2019, so in the last five or so years a lot has happened. But impact campaigns give the film a role. Storytelling is so important.
NGOs and scientists are really lacking good storytelling, so why not come together with filmmakers and use the film in different ways beyond the cinematic experience? I think it’s important that even if the message the film is giving is dire, an impact campaign can give hope, because you can give actual solutions into how people can help and not feel helpless after a screening. It’s important in Germany, as documentaries sometimes don’t have the same cultural regard as they do in other places such as the UK or the Netherlands.
I was thinking about the current intensity of the political climate, especially in a city like Berlin. What role does documentary play in how our everyday lives feel?
AR: It’s a very important question, and our feeling is that in these times reality is harsh and overwhelming, and now here we are holding a film festival in which we’re throwing even more reality onto people. So in our film selections we tried to [pick] two things. First, of course there are documentaries that confront our realities, but we also have ones that show it’s not just dire but that there is also beauty and hope in stories. So we have a mixture. A film like The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee just shows this amazing actor and his story and how he is brought to life through his work.
VS: It’s really important to also show a message that’s lighter or has hope of how things can be turned around and be better. So yes, documentary storytelling can be used as a form of resistance.
The festival crosses medium – film, podcast, even a small magazine. How does such a varied programme work in practice?
AR: The festival merges film screenings with other mediums. For the screening of Pepi Fandango (D: Lucija Stojevic, 2023), in which two old Viennese friends take to the road connected by their love of music, we have a beautiful combination of the film plus a book combined with a music performance.
This will be followed by the film’s protagonist, Peter Perez, who survived the Holocaust, in discussion with singer-songwriter and author Roxanne de Bastion, whose book The Piano Player of Budapest: A True Story of Holocaust Survival, Music and Hope discusses her grandfather’s experiences with music and war, and how art can be a tool in times of crisis. We wanted to go deeper, finding other mediums that audiences can interact with alongside the films. We also have a live performance with Total Refusal, an Austrian pseudo-Marxist collective who play the game Red Dead Redemption and use it as a social critique on violence. We’ll combine their performance with a book on critical game theory.
VS: We’ll have VR projects too, we try to go across all nonfiction storytelling formats.
AR: We’re excited for a screening of Uncropped (D: DW Young, 2023), a documentary about iconic NYC photographer James Hamilton’s work, and he’ll be present to discuss. We’ll also have an exhibition centre where we invite everyone to come and dive into nine VR projects and two multimedia installations – this is on voluntary donation, so everyone can be involved. The podcast element to this festival connects podcasts to the film programme, because podcasts are a part of nonfiction storytelling.
Yes, it’s hard to underestimate how much podcasts have become a part of our lives…
AR: Exactly. We’ve selected ones that fit the films on offer, so audiences can sit down and listen and get inspiration from them alongside the aspects of the film they fit. We’re creating a conversation between filmmakers, artists and journalists.
NGOs and scientists are really lacking good storytelling, so why not come together with filmmakers?
So, what was the curation process behind all of this?
VS: (Laughs) An amazing team. It really takes a village. We have amazing people who work in different fields and have singular connections and insights, and we got our brains together.
AR: What Viviane and I did at the beginning was look at clusters – nature, society, science and tech, all nonfiction. And then bring on board our team of curators with knowledge in all these different fields.
VS: And another way to do this is to show the work in places that suit the themes. We have venues as diverse as the Colosseum Filmtheater, Documentation Centre, Zeiss-Großplanetarium, ACUD Kino and many more iconic Berlin spots. So the fun part is we can be imaginative and go to unexpected and different places.
What are some of the films audiences should look out for?
VS: That’s hard – the whole programme is incredible. But I must recommend to all The Hexagonal Hive and a Mouse in a Maze – what a name! It’s about how children’s education is viewed globally and how creativity is taken away from kids. It questions the effect that education systems have on them. Tilda Swinton and Bartek Dziadosz directed it. It’s weird, wonderful and beautiful, it makes you think. And Tilda will be present!
AR: Sisterqueens (D: Clara Stella Hüneke, 2024) is our opening film, made by an all-women crew who created a young migrant female rap collective in Berlin, [about] how their relationships developed over the course of three years. Then there’s Greta Gerwig: Itinerary of a Rising Star (D: Pierre-Paul Puljiz, 2024), a lovely portrait of a rising talent in contemporary cinema. And So It Begins (2024), Ramona S. Diaz’s most recent in her series on elections, democracy and resistance movements in the Philippines.
Askold Kurov’s Of Caravan and the Dogs is an unflinching look at Russian journalists’ resistance in a time of journalism bans and war. There’s a film, a book, and a podcast for everyone. It’s definitely a new approach, as most festivals have a really straight line in their programming.
Yes, I was going to mention that you’re joining a list of many, many Berlin film festivals… What do you hope audiences take away from your offering?
AR: We hope to inspire someone to get interested and watch something they wouldn’t otherwise by offering them very different opportunities to engage. The thematic festivals do great work here in Berlin. I was the director of the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin, and from my time setting up the fundraising and partnerships department at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) I know there’s great progress happening when it comes to working on the relationship films can have to social change. With Dokumentale we were thinking, nonfiction is so beautiful in all its forms, and so we wanted to open that up further.
- Dokumentale, Oct 10-20, various locations across Berlin, details.
