A unique pitch format for students. Sponsored by SÜDKINO Filmproduktion, endowed with 2,500 euros

The pitch competition of DOK.talent Award, sponsored by SÜDKINO Filmproduktion, offers students from our partner universities the opportunity to present their projects to commissioning editors, producers and distributors in a speed pitch as part of the DOK.forum Marketplace. At the same time, it gives the students valuable first contact with the industry and direct feedback on their projects. The best project, including the most convincing pitch, receives the award, which is endowed with a research funding of 2,500 euros.

Submission and regulations

The submitted projects should be based on films with a running time of at least 52 minutes and are currently in the pre-production stage (book stage).

The concept (PDF, max. 5 pages / max. 2.000 words, preferably with stills / mood pictures) should include the following content:

• synopsis
• motivation of the director
• visual concept
• dramaturgy
• tight financing plan
• short, tabular curriculum vitae
• team (direction, if necessary production, camera, sound)
• if necessary a teaser / trailer (max. 5 minutes, only as online link, not obligatory)
• name of the partner university

Please send all material to: pitch@dokfest-muenchen.de

The award amount will be disbursed upon presentation of the production contract to the award sponsor.

The submission for the DOK.talent Award is free of charge. The submission deadline for the next DOK.talent Award is 24 February 2025.

Selection process

The selection team of DOK.forum will choose from all submissions for the DOK.talent Award for a total of nine projects. At a closed event in the beginning of the festival (7-11 May 2025) at the Munich University of Television and Film the participants will present their projects individually and without technical aids to four jurors in three rounds. The jurors are renowned decision makers from public broadcasters and the documentary film industry in German-speaking countries. This is followed by Q&A and feedback. 

In the run-up, Jan Sebening, head of the Student Award at DOK.fest München, will also offer a workshop on the topic of feedback for the nine nominated participants.

Participating film academies

DFFB, Berlin
Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg
Filmakademie Wien
Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf
HEAD Genf
HFBK Hamburg
HFF München
HFG Karlsruhe
IFS Köln
KHM Köln
Kunsthochschule Kassel
Macromedia, München
ZeLIG, Bozen
ZHdK, Zürich

Contact

Alina Götzlich
DOK.forum Marketplace
marktplatz@dokfest-muenchen.de

Jan Sebening
Student Award
sebening@dokfest-muenchen.de

Award Donor:
Südkino Filmproduktion GmbH

Award winning project 2024: POLITIK IST PERSÖNLICH (WT: BUILD A PARTY)

Award winner:

Indira Geisel

Jury statement

"(...) In a very close decision, the jury decided for a project in which the filmmaker portrays three generations of her own family – in which, as she says, “campaigning is a family affair“. Let it be known: POLITIK IST PERSÖNLICH, a film that engages with ambivalence, allows for critical distance and, on a personal level, seeks its own fresh perspective, is the well deserved winner. We congratulate Indira Geisel and her team on winning the DOK.talent Award 2024."

Jury 2024

Katharina Bergfeld, Producer, Ma.ja.de
Petra Felber, Commissioning Editor, BR
Brigitte Hofer, Producer, Maximage
Peter Jaeger, Consultant, Jaeger Creative
Jutta Krug, Commissioning Editor, WDR
Esther van Messel, CEO, First Hand Films
Gülseren Ölcüm, Format Developer, ZDF
Julia Peters, Distributor, JIP Filmverleih
Ira Tondowski, Producer, Tondowski Films
Marcus Vetter, Commissioning Editor, SWR
Sven Wälti, Commissioning Editor, SRG SSR
Jakob Zimmermann, Commissioning Editor, ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel

• To the 2024 project selection

Award winning project 2023: EIN KLEINER MOMENT / A SMALL MOMENT

Award winner:

Daniela Magnani Hüller

One summer day 12 years ago, I survived a crime for which the perpetrator would later be convicted of attempted murder. I almost lost my life just because an adolescent male and fellow classmate would not take "no" for an answer. Institutions and adults could have possibly prevented what happened but did not. Today, I wonder how I was able to regain a positive view of this world and its people. Looking back, I believe that some small moments that happened a short time after the incident played a significant role. Often, they were just small gestures from people I barely knew – for example, a commissioner told me something back then that I would never forget. With this film, I want to retrace those moments and images that have been indelibly burned into my memory and meet the people from that time once again. And I want to return to the place that allowed me to go on living and feel truly free for the first time: Rio de Janeiro.

Jury statement

„A SMALL MOMENT by Daniela Magnani Hüller (HFF, Munich) tells from an inside perspective all those small, yet very significant moments that happened to the filmmaker after having survived an attempted murder. While there are many films told from a perpetrator’s perspective, there are only a few told by survivors. And albeit being very personal, the project is also already quite advanced in its aesthetic structure and visual concept. Brave, outspoken and true of heart, Daniela’s film has a unique approach yet speaks of an important social issue: in Germany every third day a femicide occurs. But above all the film illuminates how one individual’s action can make a significant difference in someone else’s life.“

Jury 2023

Antje Boehmert, Executive Producer and Managing Director at DOCDAYS PRODUCTION GmbH
Petra Felber, Commissioning Editor DOcumentaries, BR
Dagmar Mielke, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg/arte
Sharon Nuni, Commissioning Editor, ORF
Julia Irene Peters, JIP FILM & VERLEIH
Carl-Ludwig Rettinger, CEO and Producer, Lichtblick Film 
Mariana Schneider, CEO Kuratorium junger deutscher Film
Bernhard Simek, LEONINE Distribution
Franziska Sonder, Ensemble Films
Marcus Vetter, Commissioning Editor, SWR
Ralph Wieser, CEO mischief films
Jakob Zimmermann, Redakteur, ZDF/Das kleine Fernsehspiel 

• To the 2023 project selection

Award winning project 2022: VON PFLANZEN UND MENSCHEN

Award winner:

Antshi von Moos

Science deals with the question of how plants communicate via olfactory molecules in an environment increasingly polluted by humans. A poetically observing film journey.

Jury statement

"Antshi von Moos' film shows in a scientific-artistic way the thousands of ways plants communicate and thus encourages us to make a long overdue change of perspective. To look at the world through the eyes of plants, so to speak, without anthropomorphising them, requires courage, creativity and also esprit. A smart, sophisticated and humorous look with intense sound worlds from a courageous director who explores new frontiers."

Jury 2022

Antje Boehmert, Producer, DOCDAYS Productions GmbH
Dagmar Mielke, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg / ARTE
Saskia Wagner, Funding Officer Cinema Documentary Film, FFF Bayern
Tobias Cassau, ARTE Coordination, Subcoordination Culture and Music, ZDF / ARTE
Bernd Seidl, Editor, SWR
Ralph Wieser, Founder & Producer, Mischief Films
Petra Felber, Editorial Director Documentary Film, BR
Siegfried Steinlechner, Editor, ORF, Editorial Department Culture Documentary Film
Sven Wälti, Head of Film, SRG SSR
Jutta Krug, Editorial Office Documentary Film, WDR
Esther van Messel, CEO, First Hand Films
Jakob Zimmermann, Editor, ZDF / Das kleine Fernsehspiel

• To the 2022 project selection

Award winning project 2021: DER SIEBTE SOHN

Award winner:

Max Carlo Kohal

The water foams and a deep rumble hangs in the air as the ship lets the propeller roar again to manoeuvre the ship to berth. Carefully, the captain moves the ship, which weighs tons, closer to the concrete wall of the landing site and gives the sailor the order to throw the rope to moor. The sailor pulls out and throws the dripping rope towards the bollard: only on the 7th attempt does the ship's line wrap around the harbour pier four metres away. The young Yann-Frederik is training to be a sailor on the "Wilhelmina", a Dutch inland vessel on which he works and lives. Theo Geneugelijk, is the captain and, unlike most skippers, he has a lot of patience for the clumsy trainee. Nevertheless, Yann remains overwhelmed with his tasks, because his skills are full of deficits despite the training period of one year so far. But it is not only his work that causes him difficulties, even after work is finished it becomes clear that as an adolescent on the "Wilhelmina" he is left to his own devices: shopping, cooking, doing the laundry or keeping his cabin tidy are everyday tasks that Yann did not know before his training. But not because he is a lazy boy, but because he had no experience with these things in his broken family. During his five-year training period to become a sailor, he will not only learn his trade: he will have to find his way in the world.

Jury statement

„Max Carlo Kohal takes us into a clearly defined universe for his long-term observation - a cargo ship on European inland waters. From Basel to Rotterdam, always along the Rhine. Three men steer the ship and spend their lives there. With the director, we accompany the young Rudmer, who will spend the next three years training to become a sailor. The jury of the Pitch Award appreciates this insight into a world that is unknown and unseen. [...] The director shows us the complex world of industrialised goods traffic – and at the same time presents a very personal film here, shot in a very confined space, a globalisation story from below."

Jury 2021

Antje Boehmert (DOCDAYS Productions GmbH)
Anne-Kathrin Brinkmann (ZDF/ARTE)
Tobias Cassau (ZDF/ARTE)
Petra Felber (BR)
Sharon Nun (ORF)
Sara Günter (ZDF, funk)
Jutta Krug (WDR)
Chatherine Le Goff (ARTE)
Esther van Messel (First Hand Films)
Peter Schernhuber (Diagonale)
Aline Schmid (Beauvoir Films)
Marcus Vetter (SWR)
Sven Wälti (SRG SSR)
Ralph Wieser (Mischief Films)

• To the 2021 project selection

Award winning project 2020: AFTER THE GODS

Award winner:

Jasmine Alakari

What happens when young people start to build their own society and have to figure out what’s right and wrong all over again? The eleven-years-old Taranom is growing up in a landscape of total chaos, an occupied square “Exarcheia”, in Athens Greece, which remains the battleground of the anarchist and the police. She tries to force her mother Mariam, a radical feminist fighter, who is not afraid to use violence for her battle, to stop her political activities. Believing she can solve problems in a non-violent way, she picks up the camera and heads out to document how her invented fantasy figure takes on conflicts. One of the people she tries to help is her friend Abtin, leader of the militant anarchists and hunted by the anti terrorist police.

Jury statement

„A melancholy, probably sometimes desperate swan song about false promises of happiness and the deep longing of young people who do not want to accept their own hopelessness and powerlessness. AFTER THE GODS promises wild commitment and a tender look at chaos. An essay between social and aesthetic fronts, full of poetry and yet politically wide awake! Driven by all the contradictions in front of and behind the camera, Jasmin Alakari tells a universal story with a slightly aching pinch of humour."

Jury 2020