DOK Leipzig has announced the selection of projects for the 20th edition of the DOK Co-Pro Market, which will take place at the festival from 28-29 October, with complementary online meetings scheduled for 5 November. The selected 35 projects from 30 countries, spanning five continents, will have the opportunity to find financing and co-production partners.

This year’s number of entries was 366, which is an increase on the previous year and the years before. The selection process was carried out by the team consisting of Jia Zhao (producer and founder of Muyi Film and Silk Road Film Salon), Marcella Jelić (founder of Split Screen), Ümit Uludağ (producer and CEO of CORSO), Brigid O’Shea (director of DAE), Guevara Namer (coordinator of the DOK Co-Pro Market) and Nadja Tennstedt (director of DOK Industry).

Some of the directors and producers invited to this year’s Co-Pro Market have previously had their projects presented and/or their films screened at DOK Leipzig. US filmmaker Milton Guillén (Co-Pro Market 2019 with On the Move) will introduce his new project My Skin and I, co-directed with Fiona Guy Hall. German filmmaker Marita Stocker (DOK Leipzig 2019 with What to Do With All This Love) will return to the festival with her new project Sitting the Month.

This year’s selection features a number of projects that zoom in on intimate family stories to examine broader themes marking nations, from societal shifts to events with profound socio-political consequences, such as civil wars and military conflicts. Joël Jent’s Rebellion of Memory zeroes in on a family of three from different camps of Peru’s last armed conflict. In Kafka in Belgrade (working title), Maša Nešković trains her lens on her stepfather, notable filmmaker Goran Marković, navigating family ties against the backdrop of Serbia’s turbulent history.

Some projects depict liberation struggles and assorted forms of resistance against oppressive forces. With a view to exploring new ways to tell a larger story, Esther Vital uses animation in her visually striking documentary If I Die to reveal the horrors of a clandestine torture centre used by the Brazilian military dictatorship. A tonally different, but no less critical, story is explored in Manuel Inacker’s The Land We Breathe, which traces the endeavour of a devoted trio trying to protect Dalmatia on the Croatian coast amid the onslaught of tourists and looming climate collapse.

Some titles, such as Jacopo De Bertoldi and Petna Ndaliko Katondolo’s Fists of Peace, Kan Muftic’s Blackbelts, and Nupur Agrawal and Shivajee Biswanath’s Downhill Kargil, use sports as an element of healing, empowerment and community-building. Others do likewise with music and singing, such as Walter Fasano’s Popol Vuh: A Cosmic Journey, Nona Giunashvili’s Sacred Songs and Amine Boukhris’s Solo.

The selection also includes promising projects that the DOK Industry team scouted at trusted partner training initiatives and film markets: Andrei Kutsila’s Letters, Amílcar Patel’s Africa AI, Emmanuelle Mayer’s Woman in White and Yuriy Shylov’s Entr’actes. This year’s line-up also showcases three compelling documentary series projects: Daphné Leblond and Lisa Billuart-Monet’s The Free Speech Rises, Rafael Valdeavellano and Nicolas Acuña’s true-crime work Letelier File, and Philipp Diettrich and Sara Woldeslassie’s From Here.

The complete list of selected projects is below:

Africa AI – Amílcar Patel (South Africa)
Production company: KAMVA Collective

Bitter Seed – Camélia Gadhgadhi (France/Algeria)
Production companies: Amok Films, Libre Image

Blackbelts – Can Muftic (Switzerland)
Production company: Panimage

BOOM! - Laura Plancarte (UK)
Production companies: The Republic of Park Royal, LP Films

Chunyu: A Death Foretold – Fan Yang (China/Canada)
Production companies: Walking in the Mountains, Electric Shadow

Downhill Kargil – Nupur Agrawal, Shivajee Biswanath (India)
Production company: AutumnWolves Media

Entr’actes – Yuri Shilov (Ukraine)
Production company: Alarm Productions

Fists of Peace – Jacopo De Bertoldi, Petna Ndaliko Katondolo (Italy/DR Congo)
Production companies: AntropicA, Alkebu

The Free Speech Rises – Daphné Leblond, Lisa Billuart-Monet (France/Belgium)
Production companies: Les Films d’Ici, Iota Production

From Here – Philipp Diettrich, Sara Woldeslassie (Germany)
Production company: Pinky Swear Film

From Radvanka – Tomi Hazhlinsky (Ukraine)
Production company: Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema

The Gary Project – Luchina Fisher (USA)
Production company: Little Light Productions

The Goldfather – Decio Matos Jr (Brazil)
Production company: Capuri

Hana, Algeria and Me – Assia Tamerdjent (France/Algeria)
Production companies: Making of Films, Urubu Films

Hope Is a Word – Maria Galliani Dyrvik (Norway/Nigeria)
Production company: Smau Media

If I Die – Esther Vital (Brazil/France/Spain)
Production companies: O Par Produções, Marmitafilms, Midralgar

Kafka in Belgrade (working title) – Maša Nešković (Serbia)
Production company: Marienbad film

The Land We Breathe – Manuel Inacker (Croatia/Germany)
Production company: Restart

Left Behind – Nasib Mahamud Farah (Denmark)
Production company: Emjay Productions

Letelier File – Rafael Valdeavellano, Nicolas Acuña (Chile)
Production company: La Ventana Cine

Letters – Andrei Kutsila (Poland/Germany)
Production companies: DocEdu Foundation, DOCDAYS Productions

My Dad's a Farmer – El Kheyer Zidani (Algeria/Germany)
Production companies: Z§K Production, jip Film & Verleih

My Skin and I – Milton Guillén, Fiona Guy Hall (Nicaragua/Germany/USA)
Production companies: Mayana Films, Solaris Film

not-yet-here – Giorgio Bosisio (Italy)
Production company: Studio x01

Oh, Heart Don’t Be Afraid – Ana Kvichidze (Georgia/Germany)
Production companies: Moonbow Production, parabellum film

Popol Vuh: A Cosmic Journey – Walter Fasano (USA)
Production company: Good ‘n Proper

Queerinale, Who Will Take Care of Me? - Matteo Castellino (Italy)
Production company: Stefilm International

Rebellion of Memory – Joël Jent (Switzerland/France/Peru)
Production companies: Aaron Film, Les Films d’Ici, Amazona Producciones

Sacred Songs – Nona Giunashvili (Georgia)
Production company: 17|07 Productions

Sitting the Month – Marita Stocker (Germany)
Production company: eikon media

Solo – Amine Boukhris (Tunisia/France/Qatar)
Production companies: Donia Films, Dynamo Production

Umbrellas of the Acrobats – Mukesh Subramaniam (India)
Production company: Elsewhat

When a Poet Goes to War – Aung Naing Soe (Thailand/Hong Kong)
Production companies: Singing Cicadas, 101fps

The Wind’s Thirst – Alejandro Valbuena (Colombia)
Production company: Curare Films

Woman in White – Emmanuelle Mayer (Israel)
Production company: Emmanuelle Mayer Films