The only downside to transatlantic travel to Europe to attend Germany’s DOK-Leipzig film festival is jetlag. But that factor was minor in contrast to the opportunity to watch many amazing documentaries and meet notable filmmakers and other doc industry players. Leipzig is a city easily reached by train from my favorite Western European city, Berlin. The festival—the oldest and second largest of its kind in Europe after IDFA—takes place every October for close to two weeks. Audiences greet films warmly; many of the screenings I attended were sold-out or played to nearly full houses. Two highlights for me were watching material from Germany and Eastern Europe that most likely won’t find its way to the U.S. In that sense, I felt privileged to be there. Second, the chance to meet and spend considerably time interacting with filmmakers from such countries as Latvia, Chile, Poland, and Irak was indeed priceless.

Some of the films I saw include opening night doc Special Flight by the Swiss director Fernand Melgar, which dealt with a detention center for undocumented immigrants in notoriously neutral Switzerland. With incredible access to its characters, the film depicts the day-to-day activities of immigrants—some of whom had been in the country for over 20 years and had established families there—while they wait for their “voluntary,” or—more likely—forced (the euphemistic “special flight” of the film’s title) deportation. The film shows the face of Fortress Europe and attempts to shed light on the plight of the mostly African characters. At times, it comes off as simplistic, at best; and problematically voyeuristic, at worst.

Both the Russian short Bielutin: in the Graden of Time: Ely & Nina Bielutin and the feature Life in Stills by Israeli filmmakers Tamar Tal and Barak Heymann have “eccentric” seniors as main characters, but the similarities end there: While the former loses its charm in its first few minutes (and do we really need a film—even a short—whose main message seems to be that indeed Russians like to drink a lot of vodka), the latter develops a portrait of Israeli grandmother Miriam Wasserstein that is nuanced and moving.

In Kirkcaldy Man, Julian Schanitz goes in search of a vanished Scottish hero, former Dart world champion Jocky Wilson. The film is a melancholy meditation on life in a small blue-collar village in Scotland cloaked under the guise of a mystery. In the end, we care less about what happened to Wilson, and instead mourn a community with few options except for nostalgia.

My favorite doc of the festival was called Argentinian Lesson. The film is an impressive documentation of the first year of Director Wojciech Staron moving his family from Poland to a small village in Argentina. Paterfamilias Staron serves as cameraman as well, and the results show on screen: long and intimate takes using natural light that reflect beautifully. Seen through the point-of-view of his eldest son as he attends school, makes new friends, learns a new language, and falls in love with his neighbor, the film tiptoes a porous line between fiction and non-fiction. In fact, the filmmaker allows as much: although not entirely scripted, he did admit certain set-ups. Did it bother me? Not really.

I mentioned another salient point for me at Leipzig which was that I spent time with great, friendly filmmakers. Some of the more talented and generous included the Uruguayan Emiliano Mazza, fresh from having won Mexico City’s DOCS DF 100-Hour filmmaking challenge (with the lovely Avenida de Reinas, available to preview soon, I hope); the Finnish Cilla Werning, who is co-producing the U.S. production American Vagabond; and Germany’s Nils Boekamp, whose Good Night White Pride was selected for DOK-Leipzig’s Co-Production Meetings. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fantastic work of DOK-Leipzig’s staff—in particular, Christine Hille and Brigid O’Shea—and volunteers in making my festival experience memorable.