As we give in to autumn and summer winds down, the film festival circuit does the opposite. With some of the continent’s most renowned and largest documentary festivals taking place across the coming months, we thought to take a look at how the programs are shaping up for four of its most long-running. Here, we take a look at Doclisboa (Portugal), DOK Leipzig (Germany), IDFA (The Netherlands), and Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic), as each presents full and diverse programs of films, events, workshops, and industry activities.

Of course, aside from the industry status quo, several regional and more underrepresented events are occurring throughout the coming months that also deserve time and attention. Amongst them are Mallorca’s “slow festival” MajorDocs (October 5-9), Hungary’s Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (November 9-21), and Poland’s Watch Docs Human Rights in Film Documentary Festival (December 3-10).

Here, we look at what has been announced as of publishing time but keep in mind all of these events have much to come, so keep an eye on their websites and social channels.

Doclisboa

As a (primarily) physical event this year, Lisbon’s Doclisboa occurs between 21-31 October at various locations in the Portuguese capital. Under the motto of “Resistance”, Doclisboa kicks off with a double documentary bill reflecting the ever-present continuity of human struggle and perseverance through it.

One of the year’s most renowned documentaries will kick things off entirely, Marta Popivoda’s Landscapes of Resistance, which has recently won awards at the likes of Sarajevo Film Festival and Serbia’s Beldocs, while making the rounds virtually everywhere since its IFFR debut. Coupled on the opening bill will also be Brazilian filmmaker Sérgio Silva’s The Earth is Still Blue When I Get Off Work, an existential look at the cinematographic archive of Brazil and the ephemeral nature of heritage.

Doclisboa 2015 winners Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis bring their Cannes debut documentary The Tale of King Crab as the festival’s closing film. Existing somewhere between history and mythology, the film builds upon a legendary anti-hero, Luciano. Exiled from Italian medieval society, Luciano embarks on searching for treasure, finding much more along the way.

Doclisboa has also announced several selections across two other festival sections, Heartbeat (music documentary) and From the Earth to the Moon. Highlights here include Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Jane Birken biography, Jane by Charlotte (Heartbeat), and Mark Cousins’ visual encyclopedia and perception through gaze, The Story of Looking (From The Earth to the Moon).

What Else to Watch: Three episodes from the BBC documentary series Uprising (directed by Steve McQueen and James Rogan) where, under the shadow of the Thatcher era, lives a country in deep tension between black communities and its far-right party, National Front.

DOK Leipzig

Returning to cinema between 25 and 31 October, Germany’s DOK Leipzig will bring some 200 films back to its program. In addition, the festival’s tenth Leipziger Ring will be presented. The award is given to an artistic documentary that “deals with the subject of democracy in an extraordinary way.”

For its program, many details have been announced with a centerpiece retrospective, The Jews of the Others: Divided Germany, Distributed Guilt, Dissected Images, looking at issues of reconciliation and remembrance during the divided German times. Featuring films from the 1940s through to the present day, the retrospective looks to examine the attribution of Jewishness and its examination in German-language productions.

Israeli filmmaker Avi Mograbi will be presented with the 2021 Dok Leipzig Homage honor. Mograbi, whose mother fled from Leipzig to Palestine as a child to escape the Nazis, will have three works presented: Once I Entered a Garden, Z32, and his latest, The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation. Each film presents Mograbi’s critical and ironic approach to dealing with Israel’s politics in the Middle East conflict.

What Else to Watch: Keep an eye out on October 7 as DOK Leipzig announces the complete selections of its six competition programs.

IDFA

Running in mid-late November, from 17 to 28, the 34th edition of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam has not brought too many details to the fore yet, but some selections have gradually emerged.

The 2021 IDFA Guest of Honour will be filmmaker and writer Hito Steyerl. The Berlin-based multi-disciplinary artist’s work spans everything from documentary film to video installation to performative lecture and has exhibited at the likes of Venice Biennale and MoMA. As part of her program, she will give a public talk at the city’s famed Pathé Tuschinski and present her top 10 (which in fact consists of fourteen titles) of her most influential films.

Armenian filmmaker Artavazd Pelechian will be given the rarely given IDFA Lifetime Achievement Award and a ten-film retrospective. An instrumental figure in the heyday of Soviet filmmaking, it wasn’t until the 1980s when Pelechian’s work first hit Western screens. This work garnered praise from such luminaries as Jean-Luc Godard and Patti Smith.

One of the most influential films in the Dutch documentary tradition, Amsterdam Global Village, from the late Johan van der Keuken, will inspire a Focus program at IDFA 2021. That film, a 4-hour ethnographic exploration of the city, will yield to investigations and reckonings of the current Amsterdam incarnation, colonialism, corporatism, and all.

What Else to Watch: There will be much to watch as details emerge, but for now, Artavazd Pelechian will debut his first film in 27 years, La Nature.

Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival

The 25th anniversary of the Czech Republic’s Ji.hlava International Documentary Festival also reappears in local cinemas from 26-31 October. In drawing with its tradition, Ji.hlava brings classical and experimental documentary cinema across themed retrospectives, competition and off-competition sections, and special events.

One of the retrospectives for 2021 will center around the underground Romanian documentary scene of the Ceausescu era. In Conference Fascinations: Romania, 24 films will be presented, including Mircea Săucan’s poetic and industrial 1969 film, The Alert.

The second retrospective centers around Slovak ethnographer and filmmaker Karol Plicka and features his 1934 Venice Film Festival winning The Earth Sings alongside 14 more films. All screened on classic 35mm.

As with the other festivals mentioned, several films across sections have been announced. For Ji.hlava, sections such as Czech Joy, Constellations, and their music documentary program with highlights including The Sundance-winning Summer of Soul (…or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) and Jean-Gabriel Périot’s highly topical critique of European elitism, Returning to Reims.

What Else to Watch: Errol Morris returns with My Psychedelic Love Story, about LSD guru Timothy Leary. Chinese filmmaker Jin Huaqing’s Dark Red Forest depicts the 100 coldest days of the year atop a Chinese plateau where 10,000 Buddhist nuns gather to build small wooden huts and seek enlightenment. Finally, British experimental electronic producer Matthew Herbert and his politically motivated field recordings make up Enrique Sánchez Lansch’s A Symphony of Noise.

Steve Rickinson

"Came to Bucharest after living in Amsterdam & Brooklyn, among others, Steve is the industry editor for Modern Times Review documentary magazine.