07/11/2013 - The 56th edition of the Documentary and Animated Film Festival chose its winners and broke records

The 56^th DOK Leipzig handed its Golden Dove for Best Documentary to Stop the Pounding Heart [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by US-based Italian director Roberto Minervini (soon competing at the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival). Slovakian filmmaker Robert Kirchhoff received a special mention (and the ecumenical Prize of the Jury) for Normalization.

The Best Talent Dove went to Swiss-Iranian director Kaveh Bakhtiari for L'Escale [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and this category’s special mention was given to Valéry Rosier for the Franco-Belgian coproduction Silence Radio. French title Casa by Daniela De Felice won the first ever Animadok Dove for Best Animated Documentary (read the article).

As for animation, Špela Čadež won gold for the German-Slovenian feature Boles, while the Silver Dove went to Canadian title Subconscious Password, and special mentions were given to Renaud Perrin and Julien Telle (France) for Lettres à la mer, and Thomas Stellmach and Maja Oschmann (Germany) for Virtuoso Virtual.

The organizers revealed that this 56^th edition of the prestigious festival welcomed a historical record number of spectators: 41,500 people came to enjoy films (versus 37,600 last year) and the number of accredited professionals was never this high, going from 1,526 to 1,705 (which represents an increase of over 10%). The festival’s director, Claas Danielsen, attributed this success to the high quality of the programme and industry meetings” and the “friendly and intimate atmosphere” of the event. In total, 346 films representing 57 countries were presented, and nearly all were digital.  

(Translated from French)