DOK.fest Munich (3-14 May and online 8-21 May) has announced its opening film as Etilaat Roz by Abbas Rezaie. For ten years, the journalists of Etilaat Roz have been making the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Kabul – entirely transparent, and constantly on the lookout for abuses in society and politics. But what do you do when this work becomes practically impossible, asks Rezaie, whose film follows the team as the city is recaptured by the Taliban.
The festival describes Etilaat Roz as “not only the story of the most widely read newspaper in liberal Kabul, it is also a testimony to international political failure…A dramatic chamber play that mirrors world history in a very confined space.”
DOK.fest Munich also announced that this year’s thematic series DOK.focus, titled POWER OF MEDIA?, deals with “the diversity, ambivalence and increasingly conflicting role of the media in five selected films.” Each film asks questions about power and powerlessness of the current media as well as their nature of being both an essential tool and a threat to our democratic culture.
The DOK.focus films are:
- 5 Seasons of Revolution (Germany/Syria/Norway/Netherlands/Qatar 2023, Lina, 95 min., original with English subtitles). Lina films 10 years of Syrian civil war. Journalism as a means of non-violent resistance.
- And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine (Sweden/Denmark 2023, Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck, 88 min., original with English subtitles). A visually powerful journey through the history of visual media – from the first photographs to the present day.
- Goldhammer (Germany 2023, André Krummel, Pablo Ben Yakov, 92 min., original with English subtitles). Sex, Drugs or rather: Politics? Marcel Goldhammer asks: why not all those three…?
- Iron Butterflies (Ukraine/Germany 2023, Roman Liubyi, 84 min., original with English subtitles). In 2014, flight MH17 is shot down over Ukraine. And so begins a wide-reaching Russian disinformation campaign.
- Manifesto (Russia 2022, Angie Vichito, 68 min., original with English subtitles). Present day Russia through the lens of social media: a film mosaic with TikTok, YouTube and Periscope clips.
The festival also unveiled its DOK.aroundtheclock April selections, the admission for which is sometimes free in Munich cinemas. This month’s selections are:
- Unskinned (PT 2019, Inês Gil, 76 min):An anachronistic look at the status quo after the economic crisis in Portugal – and its human consequences.
- Courage (DE 2021, Aliaksei Paluyan, 90 min): Marina, Pavel and Denis: three theatre-makers in civil resistance against the Belarusian regime. Moments of cohesion, civil resistance and repression by police forces.
- Cow (GB 2021, Andrea Arnold, 94 min): A close-up portrait of the daily lives of two cows. An unsentimental look at what man allows himself to do with his fellow creature.
