The Sections „African Encounters“ and „Filmmaking in Exile“
From THE BATTLE FOR LAIKIPIA (c) DOK.fest München
Since 2013, DOK.fest München has focused on the African continent. This year, the format “African Encounters”, which is unique in Germany, focuses on climate change. With three films from Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, unresolved questions of climate justice between the global South and North, between Africa and Europe will be put on the agenda. Under the motto LET'S TALK CLIMATE, the cinematic perspective will be broadened through personal encounters: filmmakers, experts and the audience will enter into dialogue in talks and a panel discussion.
The film essay THE TREE OF AUTHENTICITY by video artist Sammy Baloji will be screened on 11 May at 11 am at the HFF Munich. Dr Thomas Hendriks, cultural anthropologist and author of the film, will be on hand to discuss the film. At 3 pm, Kenyan producer Toni Kamau will present THE BATTLE FOR LAIKIPIA. At 5 pm, “African Encounters” curator Barbara Off will host a panel discussion with Toni Kamau, Dr Thomas Hendriks, Julian Etienne of the DOC Society's Climate Story Fund, and Sudanese climate activist Nisreen Elsaim on how climate change is exacerbating unresolved colonial conflicts and racist structures. Admission is free.
The partner Misereor invites you to a get-together in the foyer of the HFF Munich from 6 pm. The "African Encounters" programme closes at 8 pm with the night film RISING UP AT NIGHT. All three films can be seen three more times at DOK.fest München.
Here are the films of the “African Encounters“ section:
THE BATTLE FOR LAIKIPIA (Directors: Daphne Matziaraki, Peter Murimi / Greece, Kenya, USA 2024 / 94 min.) On the Laikipia Plateau in Kenya, the Samburu are under increasing pressure. White settlers are putting up fences, nature conservationists are buying up land, and droughts that are getting increasingly longer are impacting the cattle herders’ way of life. A battle is raging for water and grass. In this way, unresolved colonial conflicts are being brought to the surface by climate change.
THE TREE OF AUTHENTICITY (Director: Sammy Baloji / Belgium, DR Congo 2025 / 89 min.) Competition DOK.horizonte A colonial research station in the Congo basin: meteorological data from the 1930s provides important insights into climate change. The Congo’s rainforests play a central role in the fight against global warming. In his critical film essay, Sammy Baloji draws an arc between the colonial era and today’s climate economy.
RISING UP AT NIGHT (Director: Nelson Makengo / Belgium, Germany, Burkina Faso, Qatar, DR Congo 2024 / 96 min.) In Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo, it gets dark after sunset. There has been no power since the city was hit by catastrophic flooding. While the state drags its heels, the citizens get organised. They collect money for a new power cable, church services take place with solar powered lights, and sales of batteries skyrockets.
The section “Filmmaking in Exile – Films About Filmmaking Far from Home
From TIME TO THE TARGET (c) DOK.fest München
DOK.fest München once again presents works by filmmakers living in exile and currently unable to return to their home countries. The section is a collaboration with the Goethe-Institut in Exile project, which offers refugee, exiled, and migrant artists a place where they can continue their artistic work.
“Filmmaking in Exile – Films about Filmmaking Far from Home” aims to provide a platform in Germany for artists from countries where the Goethe-Institut can no longer be active. The section includes three films by directors from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Sudan, and more. In different ways, their films make the experience of exile tangible and reflect on what exile and new beginnings mean for the artistic creative process.
Carmen Herold (Goethe-Institut in Exile):“The Filmmaking in Exile section shows the many ways in which the forfeited homeland can be told from exile: from everyday life in the shadow of war (TIME TO THE TARGET) to the documented journey of a mother into exile (WRITING HAWA) to a film project (KHARTOUM) whose team had to flee in the midst of the war and which could only be completed in exile. The films open up intimate, political, and contradictory perspectives on the filmmakers’ contexts of origin.”
These are the films of the section “Filmmaking in Exile – Films about Filmmaking Far from Home”:
WRITING HAWA (Director: Najiba Noori / France, Netherlands, Qatar, Afghanistan 2024 / 84 min.) When the Taliban regains power in Afghanistan, Najiba picks up the pieces of her film portrait of her mother in exile. Through Hawa’s story, we follow the wave of emancipation that had swept across the land. Though this now lies in tatters, women like Hawa will not relinquish what they have taught themselves: “To act changes everything.”
TIME TO THE TARGET (Director: Vitaliy Manskiy / Latvia, Czech Republic, Ukraine 2025 / 179 min.) In grand, cinematic images, this film shows us what life is like when war becomes normality. Everyday scenes are captured in a very subtle way. Passers by taking selfies are contrasted with memorials and funerals. A military orchestra accompanies the imagery. We ask ourselves: how long can things carry on like this?
KHARTOUM (Directors: Ibrahim Ahmad, Rawia Alhag, Anas Saeed, Timeea M. Ahmed, Phil Cox / Sudan, Great Britain, Germany, Qatar 2025 / 80 min.) What begins as a film about five citizens in Khartoum, ends as a film about the fate of five people in exile. A bloody power struggle between the military government and the RSF militia forces millions of Sudanese people to flee the country in April 2023. This includes the film team. The protagonists finish telling their stories in exile in Kenya.
WE NEVER LEFT (Director: Loulwa Khoury / Lebanon, USA 2024 / 83 min.) New York. A sign among the demonstrators proclaims: “Time for all politicians to migrate and for us to go back.” These are the voices of the now 10 million emigrants who have left their homes in Lebanon. Together they are calling for a social system free from corruption. The film accompanies three of them between Beirut and New York.
YALLA PARKOUR (Director: Areeb Zuaiter / Sweden, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia 2024 / 89 min.) On a quest for her Palestinian identity, the director Areeb Zuaiter comes across the parkour runner Ahmed Matar in 2015. He and his friends film themselves as they practise parkour in the ruins of the Gaza Strip. Ahmed’s light-heartedness reminds Areeb of a happy time in Gaza. Nostalgia collides with the dream of living in freedom abroad.
