Regulations for the School Class Programme of the Film Literacy Section DOK.education 2025

At DOK.education, the film literacy programme of the International Documentary Film Festival Munich, we welcome submissions for our School of Seeing for the 40th festival edition (7–18 May 2025 @cinemas, 12–25 May 2025 @home)

The submission guidelines for the documentary film competition for pupils can be found here.

 

1. What is DOK.education

Children and young people have their own perspectives on the world. They have their own themes, issues and priorities – in their world or that of adults. The film literacy programme of the International Documentary Film Festival Munich introduces children and young people to the great experience of the documentary narrative with strong and touching films.

For the upcoming edition (7 to 18 May 2025) we 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.

We 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.

 

DOK.education is conceived as a "School of Seeing". We show short documentary films in interactive film education workshops for school classes and weekend programs for families and young people. We 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 our 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 we 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.

Further information on the DOK.education programme and its self-image can also be found in an interview with Maya Reichert, head of the programme (available in German), and on our website: dokfest-muenchen.de/DOK_education.

 

  1. 2. Submissions for DOK.education

    Your submission for the upcoming festival edition should meet the following requirements:

    • We 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 2025 to attend the school performances. A fee is provided for this – see point 7.
    • The film must be submitted by 16 December 2024 (for further information, see point 8).

The date of the postmark / the completed online registration applies.

We are happy to receive earlier submissions!

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    1. 3. No submission fees

    Submissions of short films for DOK.education are generally exempt from the submission fee. We kindly ask you to ignore any machine generated payment requests due to incorrect inputs during registration.


    4. Granting of rights, legal guarantees and exemptions

    By submitting the film, you guarantee to be the sole owner of all rights to the work. This includes the personal rights, copyrights and ancillary copyrights of all persons appearing in the film and those involved in the production of the film as well as the rights of other third parties. The screening rights of the film and the trailer, the right to distribute the press material are to be temporarily granted to DOK.fest München in case your film is selected. The same applies to the transfer of rights for the presentation of the film on the digital screen.

    If your film is selected for the festival, you grant DOK.fest München these rights without the need for any further declaration. You shall exempt DOK.fest München from any claims by third parties in connection with the rights referred to in Item 4 Paragraph 1, including the reasonable costs of the necessary legal defense such as, in particular, attorney's fees and court costs.

 

  1. 5. Publicity / Promotion

If your film is selected we require press and photo material to be provided promptly. By accepting the regulations, you assure that you will make the material (online download link, photos, texts, trailers) available to the festival for press relations and promotional purposes in our print materials, on our website as well as on our social media channels in the context of DOK.fest München. Likewise, you agree that DOK.fest München may use film clips of up to three minutes as part of the festival coverage on the website. With your consent, you also grant DOK.fest München the right to pass on photos as well as trailers to selected partners for promotional purposes.

For the presentation of our respective festival edition on the website, you agree to the retention period of the photo material in our archive.

The educational programme of DOK.education now also offers free, non-profit teacher training throughout the year and visits individual school classes in closed events. By agreeing to the festival screening, you agree that we may also show your short film from the DOK.education programme at closed educational events. For all public events and for events where admissions are generated, we will again clear the use of the short films with the rights holders. DOK.education never passes on films to schools or other platforms without prior agreement and never posts them online without prior agreement.

 

  1. 6. Screening formats

The following exhibition formats are required:

  • DCI compliant Digital Cinema Package DCP
  • ProRes File 4.2.2 HQ (sound format 5.1) or a H.264 file
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  2. 7. Steps to film submission

Film submissions are made via our website under „My Account”.

  • If you are submitting a film for the first time and do not yet have a user account with us, please register here by creating an account.
  • If you already have an account, you can log in at our website at any time and submit a new film. In case you have forgotten your password, you can request a new one via our system.
  • To submit via the online form, select the module "Your films" under "Your account" after logging in. You can then use the button "Submit a film" (top right) to start your submission.

For the free submission for DOK.education, please select the section "DOK.education school programme" under "Registration for".

Please fill in the online form completely (including online screening link). Please enter correct and, if possible, complete information about the submitted film, as we will work with the information when selecting the film for our programme. The information you provide will be included in our programme booklet as well as on our website.
If you can’t provide an online link to your submitted film, you can also send us two technically flawless and clearly labelled DVDs (please do not affix paper labels but print directly onto the DVDs or label them by hand).

Postal address:
DOK.fest München
Film Administration (DOK.education)
Dachauer Str. 116
80636 Munich
Germany

Upon receipt of your film submission, you will receive a confirmation email to the email address you provided during online registration. If you receive a mechanically generated payment request for the submission fee, please ignore it.

Submissions that are incomplete or do not meet the above criteria will be considered rejected and will not be screened.

For the time being, please do not send us any digital photos, trailers or transcripts. If your film is selected, we will request this material from you. We ask for your understanding that print material sent in unfortunately cannot be returned.

 

  1. 8. 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.

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    9. Validity of the entry conditions

    By completing the registration using the online form, you accept the validity of the conditions of participation. These entry conditions apply to all current film submissions, even if they have not been expressly agreed upon again. DOK.fest München does not recognize deviating terms and conditions even if they are known, unless DOK.fest München has expressly agreed to their validity in writing.

     

    1. 10. Place of jurisdiction and the application of German law

    Munich is understood as the place of jurisdiction as far as it is permissible. The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies to the exclusion of conflicting laws.

Contact

If you have any questions about the regulations and the submission, please contact:

Veronica Loebner
loebner@dokfest-muenchen.de

DOK.fest München
Dachauer Straße 116
80636 Munich
Germany
Phone: +49 (0)89 – 51 39 97 88