A pitch award for emerging filmmakers

The pitch competition of DOK.talent Award (until 2021 'Pitch Award by Haus des Dokumentarfilms') offers students from our partner universities the opportunity to present their current projects to editors, producers and distributors in a speed pitch as part of the DOK.forum Marketplace. At the same time, it gives the students valuable first contact with the industry and direct feedback on their projects. The best student project, including the most convincing pitch, receives the award, which is donated by the Haus des Dokumentarfilms Stuttgart and endowed with 2,500 euros in research funding.

Award Donor: Haus des Dokumentarfilms Stuttgart

DOK.talent 2023

To this year's pitch

To this year's DOK.forum Award Ceremony

Submission and regulations

The submitted projects should be based on films with a running time of at least 52 minutes and are currently in the pre-production stage (book stage).

The concept (PDF, max. 5 pages / max. 2.000 words, preferably with stills / mood pictures) should include the following content:

• synopsis
• motivation of the director
• visual concept
• dramaturgy
• tight financing plan
• short, tabular curriculum vitae
• team (direction, if necessary production, camera, sound)
• if necessary a teaser / trailer (max. 5 minutes, only as online link, not obligatory)
• name of the partner university

The award for young talent is linked to the production contract of the film project. The payment of the award money is made after presentation of the production contract to the awarddonor Haus des Dokumentarfilms Stuttgart.

Submission deadline: 1 March 2023 (extended until 6 March) – the submission is now closed.

Please submit all documents as one PDF at pitch@dokfest-muenchen.

• Overview of all DOK.forum submissions

Selection process

The selection team of DOK.forum will choose from all submissions for the DOK.talent Award for a total of nine projects. At a closed event on Thursday, 4 May 2023 (tbc) at the Munich University of Television and Film (or online if necessary), the participants will present their projects individually and without technical aids to four jurors in three rounds. The jurors are renowned decision makers from public broadcasters and the documentary film industry in German-speaking countries. This is followed by Q&A and feedback. The jury meeting will take place after the event.

In the run-up (Wednesday, 3 May 2023, tbc) Jan Sebening, head of the DOK.fest Student Award, will also offer a workshop on the topic of feedback for the nine nominated participants.

Participating film academies

DFFB, Berlin
Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg
Filmakademie Wien
Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf
HEAD Genf
HFBK Hamburg
HFF München
HFG Karlsruhe
IFS Köln
KHM Köln
Kunsthochschule Kassel
Macromedia, München
ZeLIG, Bozen
ZHdK, Zürich

Contact us

Sina Weber
DOK.forum Marketplace
weber@dokfest-muenchen.de

Jan Sebening
Student Award
sebening@dokfest-muenchen.de

Review

Award winner 2022: VON PFLANZEN UND MENSCHEN by Antshi von Moos

Science deals with the question of how plants communicate via olfactory molecules in an environment increasingly polluted by humans. A poetically observing film journey.

Jury statement

"Antshi von Moos' film shows in a scientific-artistic way the thousands of ways plants communicate and thus encourages us to make a long overdue change of perspective. To look at the world through the eyes of plants, so to speak, without anthropomorphising them, requires courage, creativity and also esprit. A smart, sophisticated and humorous look with intense sound worlds from a courageous director who explores new frontiers."

• To the 2022 project selection

Jury 2022

Antje Boehmert, Producer, DOCDAYS Productions GmbH
Dagmar Mielke, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg / ARTE
Saskia Wagner, Funding Officer Cinema Documentary Film, FFF Bayern
Tobias Cassau, ARTE Coordination, Subcoordination Culture and Music, ZDF / ARTE
Bernd Seidl, Editor, SWR
Ralph Wieser, Founder & Producer, Mischief Films
Petra Felber, Editorial Director Documentary Film, BR
Siegfried Steinlechner, Editor, ORF, Editorial Department Culture Documentary Film
Sven Wälti, Head of Film, SRG SSR
Jutta Krug, Editorial Office Documentary Film, WDR
Esther van Messel, CEO, First Hand Films
Jakob Zimmermann, Editor, ZDF / Das kleine Fernsehspiel

Award winner 2021: DER SIEBTE SOHN by Max Carlo Kohal

Jury statement

„Max Carlo Kohal takes us into a clearly defined universe for his long-term observation - a cargo ship on European inland waters. From Basel to Rotterdam, always along the Rhine. Three men steer the ship and spend their lives there. With the director, we accompany the young Rudmer, who will spend the next three years training to become a sailor. The jury of the Pitch Award appreciates this insight into a world that is unknown and unseen. [...] The director shows us the complex world of industrialised goods traffic - and at the same time presents a very personal film here, shot in a very confined space, a globalisation story from below."

• To the 2021 project selection

Jury 2021

Antje Boehmert (DOCDAYS Productions GmbH)
Anne-Kathrin Brinkmann (ZDF/ARTE)
Tobias Cassau (ZDF/ARTE)
Petra Felber (BR)
Sharon Nun (ORF)
Sara Günter (ZDF, funk)
Jutta Krug (WDR)
Chatherine Le Goff (ARTE)
Esther van Messel (First Hand Films)
Peter Schernhuber (Diagonale)
Aline Schmid (Beauvoir Films)
Marcus Vetter (SWR)
Sven Wälti (SRG SSR)
Ralph Wieser (Mischief Films)

Participating film academies

Students from the following universities were invited to submit their projects for the Pitch Award 2021:

DFFB, Berlin
Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg
Filmakademie Vienna
Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf
HBKSaar
HEAD Geneva
HFBK Hamburg
HFF Munich
HFG Karlsruhe
IFS Cologne
KHM Cologne
Kunsthochschule Kassel
Macromedia, Munich
ZeLIG, Bolzano
ZHdK, Zurich

Award winner 2020: AFTER THE GODS of Jasmine Alakari

What happens when young people start to build their own society and have to figure out what’s right and wrong all over again? The eleven-years-old Taranom is growing up in a landscape of total chaos, an occupied square “Exarcheia”, in Athens Greece, which remains the battleground of the anarchist and the police. She tries to force her mother Mariam, a radical feminist fighter, who is not afraid to use violence for her battle, to stop her political activities. Believing she can solve problems in a non-violent way, she picks up the camera and heads out to document how her invented fantasy figure takes on conflicts. One of the people she tries to help is her friend Abtin, leader of the militant anarchists and hunted by the anti terrorist police.

Jury statement

„A melancholy, probably sometimes desperate swan song about false promises of happiness and the deep longing of young people who do not want to accept their own hopelessness and powerlessness. AFTER THE GODS promises wild commitment and a tender look at chaos. An essay between social and aesthetic fronts, full of poetry and yet politically wide awake! Driven by all the contradictions in front of and behind the camera, Jasmin Alakari tells a universal story with a slightly aching pinch of humour."

Jury 2020

Participating universites

The students of the following universities were invited to submit their projects for the Pitch Award 2020:

DFFB, Berlin
Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg
Filmakademie Wien
Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf
HEAD Genf
HFBK Hamburg
HFF München
HFG Karlsruhe
IFS Köln
KHM Köln
Kunsthochschule Kassel
Macromedia, München
ZeLIG, Bozen
ZHdK, Zürich