Regulations for the film literacy programme of DOK.education 2026
DOK.education, the film literacy programme of the International Documentary Film Festival Munich, is looking for short films by professional filmmakers for its school programme, Schule des Sehens. It will take place as part of the 41st DOK.fest München (6 to 17 May 2026 in cinemas, 1 May to 31 July 2026 online).
You are a teacher or a student?
Here you find the submission criteria for the non-professionals documentary film competition for young people 2026.
1. Submission for Schule des Sehens
DOK.education introduces children, teenagers and young adults to the powerful experience of documentary storytelling through compelling and moving films.
At the heart of DOK.education is the school programme Schule des Sehens (School of Seeing). The focus is on experiencing a short documentary film and meeting the filmmakers. We curate three age-appropriate short films for this purpose. In school workshops for three age groups, we show and discuss a documentary film that tells an exciting story on the same level as the pupils. Guided by trained film educators and with participatory viewing tasks, we initiate discussions on the film's theme and the documentary film genre. We introduce the young audience to the stylistic devices and conscious directorial decisions of a cinematically staged, real story. We convey that documentaries, through the choice of protagonists, camera work and editing, artistically shape reality rather than depicting it one-to-one. The DOK.education team creates accompanying teaching materials for each film to enable participating teachers to follow up on the cinema visit in a sustainable manner. The aim of the Schule des Sehens is to inspire the younger generation with enthusiasm for artistic documentary film and at the same time enable them to interpret film critically and competently.
Further information about the programme and the mission of DOK.education can be found on the DOK.education website.
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2. Submission criteria for Schule des Sehens
We are currently looking for short documentary films that address topics important to young people on an eye-to-eye level with the target audience:
We are looking for professional films about children, teenagers or young adults that
...are told from the perspective of a young protagonist.
...show the special circumstances of young people's lives.
...accompany them through major changes in their lives.
...tell of challenges they have taken on.
These films should
...convey remarkable visual imagery or bear an artistic signature,
...find an exciting narrative form for their theme,
...tell an exciting story in an artistic documentary style,
...be suitable for primary school/lower secondary school (6–12 years), middle school (12–16 years) or upper secondary school/vocational schools (16–22 years).
Formal criteria:
- Length between 10 and 30 minutes.
- English or German subtitles are desirable for non-German-language films, but not mandatory.
- No premiere requirement: films may have already been broadcast or shown on other platforms.
- If selected, your film will be shown as part of the educational programme of the 41st DOK.fest München:
in cinemas from 6 to 17 May 2026,
online from 1 May to 31 July 2026
and at adult education events throughout the year. - Ideally, the director will have time during the festival to attend two or three days of school screenings of their own film. Remunertation is provided for this – see point 8.
- The film must be submitted by 15 December 2025 (for further information, see point 7). The date of completion of the online registration applies. We welcome early submissions!
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3. No submission fees
Submissions of short films for DOK.education are generally exempt from the submission fee. We kindly ask you to ignore any machine generated payment requests due to incorrect inputs during registration.
4. Granting of rights, legal guarantees and exemptions
By submitting the film, you guarantee to be the sole owner of all rights to the work. This includes the personal rights, copyrights and ancillary copyrights of all persons appearing in the film and those involved in the production of the film as well as the rights of other third parties. The screening rights of the film and the trailer, the right to distribute the press material are to be temporarily granted to DOK.fest München in case your film is selected. The same applies to the transfer of rights for the presentation of the film on the digital screen.
If your film is selected for the festival, you grant DOK.fest München these rights without the need for any further declaration. You shall exempt DOK.fest München from any claims by third parties in connection with the rights referred to in Item 4 Paragraph 1, including the reasonable costs of the necessary legal defense such as, in particular, attorney's fees and court costs.
Beyond the festival period, the film can be requested for follow-up events as part of the DOK.education programme and for collaborative events at partner festivals. For all public events and events where admission fees are charged, we will clarify the use of the short films with the rights holders again. DOK.education also offers free, non-profit teacher training courses on the Schule des Sehens throughout the year. By agreeing to the festival screening, you consent to us showing your short film at these non-public educational events. DOK.education never passes on films to schools or other platforms without prior agreement and never puts them online without prior agreement.
The specially created accompanying school materials and any German dubbing of the film can be made available to the production company or distributor on request.
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5. Publicity / Promotion
If your film is selected for the programme, we will require press and photo material immediately after acceptance. By accepting the regulations, you agree to provide the festival with the material (online download link, photos, texts, trailer) for press relations and advertising purposes in our print materials, on our website and on our social media channels as part of DOK.fest München. Similarly, you agree that DOK.fest München may use film excerpts of up to three minutes on its website as part of its festival coverage. By accepting, you grant DOK.fest München the right to pass on photos and trailers to selected partners for promotional purposes. You agree to the retention period of the photo material in our archive for the purpose of presenting our respective festival edition on the website.
If there are commercially available DVDs or VoD links to the submitted film, DOK.education will be happy to provide these to teachers and schools.
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6. Screening formats
The following exhibition formats are required:
- DCI compliant Digital Cinema Package DCP
- ProRes File 4.2.2 HQ (sound format 5.1) or a H.264 file
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7. Steps to film submission
Film submissions are made via our website under „My Account”.
- If you are submitting a film for the first time and do not yet have a user account with us, please register here by creating an account.
- If you already have an account, you can log in at our website at any time and submit a new film. In case you have forgotten your password, you can request a new one via our system.
- To submit via the online form, select the module "Your films" under "Your account" after logging in. You can then use the button "Submit a film" (top right) to start your submission.
For the free submission for DOK.education, please select the section "DOK.education school programme" under "Registration for".
Please fill in the online form completely (including online screening link). Please enter correct and, if possible, complete information about the submitted film, as we will work with the information when selecting the film for our programme. The information you provide will be included in our programme booklet as well as on our website.
If you can’t provide an online link to your submitted film, you can also send us two technically flawless and clearly labelled DVDs (please do not affix paper labels but print directly onto the DVDs or label them by hand).
Postal address:
DOK.fest München
Film Administration (DOK.education)
Dachauer Str. 116
80636 Munich
Germany
Upon receipt of your film submission, you will receive a confirmation email to the email address you provided during online registration. If you receive a mechanically generated payment request for the submission fee, please ignore it.
Submissions that are incomplete or do not meet the above criteria will be considered rejected and will not be screened.
For the time being, please do not send us any digital photos, trailers or transcripts. If your film is selected, we will request this material from you. We ask for your understanding that print material sent in unfortunately cannot be returned.
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8. Remuneration
DOK.education invites directors of festival films from the school programme to the screenings in Munich and reimburses travel and hotel costs. DOK.education rewards participation in the school class workshops with an appropriate expense allowance. There are no claims to reimbursement of costs, screening fees or any other form of remuneration.
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9. Validity of the entry conditions
By completing the registration using the online form, you accept the validity of the conditions of participation. These entry conditions apply to all current film submissions, even if they have not been expressly agreed upon again. DOK.fest München does not recognize deviating terms and conditions even if they are known, unless DOK.fest München has expressly agreed to their validity in writing.
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10. Place of jurisdiction and the application of German law
Munich is understood as the place of jurisdiction as far as it is permissible. The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies to the exclusion of conflicting laws.
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Contact
If you have any questions about the regulations and the submission, please contact:
Veronica Loebner
loebner@dokfest-muenchen.de
DOK.fest München
Dachauer Straße 116
80636 Munich
Germany
Phone: +49 (0)89 – 51 39 97 88
