At DOK Leipzig Lithuanians will aim for the Golden Dove and seek international attention

At the today commencing 63rd DOK Leipzig festival, Lithuanian filmmakers will present themselves once more. The world premiere of Roman’s Childhood (dir. Linas Mikuta ) will take place at the festival. Also, the industry professionals will take advantage of the international distribution opportunity at the festival’s industry programme DOK Industry and the DOK Co-Pro Market.

In the most recent years the festival was particularly successful for Lithuanians – last year Audrius Mickevičius and Nerijus Mileris’s documentary film Exemplary Behaviour received as many as three prizes, amongst them the main award – the Golden Dove, and in the DOK Co-Pro Market programme Giedrė Žickytė’s film Irena received the Current Time TV (USA) development cash prize.

This year, the newest documentary film by director Linas Mikuta Roman’s Childhood will be competing for the festival’s main award – the Golden Dove. In the poetic documentary the viewers will be introduced to an 8-year-old Roman, who lives in social risk family in Klaipėda, however, he has two of the most important things in life – absolute freedom and the love of his parents. Lithuanian audiences will be able to see the film Roman’s Childhood at the European Film Forum Scanorama programme later this year.

During the DOK Leipzig Industry events, at the documentary film presentation event DOK Film Market, three Lithuanian film teams: Linas Mikuta’s film Roman’s Childhood and Giedrė Žickytė’s story The Jump which recently received the Best Documentary Film Award at the Warsaw Film Festival will work on establishing international relations with sales agents, while Gintautas Smilga and Ramūnas Aušrotas’s film’s Sublime Thirst producers and distributers will seek a world premiere opportunity

At the DOK Short n’ Sweet Live Pitch event where currently developed short-film projects are presented, the Lithuanian director’s Elena Kairytė and producer’s Rūta Jekenaitė newest film project The Mushroom Hunters will be presented.

In 2018, as Lithuania celebrated the centenary of the re-establishment of Lithuanian independence, Lithuania was country in focus at the oldest in the world Documentary Film Festival DOK Leipzig. During the significant year for Lithuania, the film community was presented with 15 Lithuanian films: the audiences saw a retrospective that paid respects to three generations of filmmakers Challenges of (In)Dependence and three Lithuanian film world premieres vying for the festival’s prizes.

DOK Leipzig is the oldest and one of the biggest and most significant international film festivals dedicated to showing documentary and animated films. Each year the festival attracts up to 50,000 visitors and presents more than 300 newest documentary and animated films from around the world.