DOK.education School of Seeing Festival (Germany)

The Film Literacy Programme introduces children and young people to the great experience of the documentary narrative with strong and touching films.

For the upcoming edition (1 to 12 May 2024) they are looking for creative short documentaries that tell stories about love, happiness, friendship, family, special hobbys, mobbing, living with disabilities, living in foreign environments, being different, addictions, abuse, challenges or upheavals – films that reach the young audience.

DOK.education is conceived as a “School of Seeing”. They show short documentary films in interactive film education workshops for school classes and weekend programs for families and young people. They want to inspire the young generation for the artistic documentary film and, in cooperation with film presenters, initiate discussions on the film theme and also on documentary narration. The aim is to familiarise the young viewers with the stylistic means and possibilities of artistic documentary film in the field of filmic staging of a real story. This particularly concerns the experience that documentary films also convey an artistically designed form of reality – through the selection of the protagonists, the camera work and the editing.

The main focus of the programme is always the joy of documentary film! And of course the encounter with the filmmakers.

For each selected film DOK.education creates a comprehensive accompanying school material which they distribute to the participating teachers in order to enable a sustainable preparation of the school class visit. If there are DVDs or VoD links to the submitted film that can be purchased, DOK.education will be happy to pass them on to teachers and schools.

What are they looking for?

• They are looking for professional films about children or teenagers,
  • that show special circumstances of life,
  • that accompany them through great changes in their lives,
  • that report on challenges they met.
• These films should
  • convey a remarkable visual language or wear handwriting,
  • find an exciting narrative form for their theme,
  • artistically tell a real story.

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.

Requirements

• Your submission for the upcoming festival edition should meet the following requirements:
  • They are looking for professional artistically narrated documentaries with a length between 10 and 30 minutes.
  • In terms of content, the focus should be on the living environments and/or perspectives of children and adolescents or young adults.
  • The target groups are the following age groups: Primary school (6-10 years), lower school (11-13 years), intermediate and upper school (14-19 years).
  • English or German subtitles are desired for non-German language films.
  • The films may have already been broadcast and shown on other platforms.
  • Ideally the filmmakers will have time during the festival in May 2024 to attend the school performances.

For more information, visit DOK.fest München.