DOK Leipzig named the winners of 11 prizes for projects in its industry programme on Thursday 29 October, with Rami Farah’s documentary project A1 and Elza Gubanova’s short Black Waters each taking two. The German festival for documentary and animated film, which runs 26 October–1 November 2026, split the awards across three DOK Industry strands: the DOK Co-Pro Market, the short-film pitching forum DOK Short n’ Sweet, and DOK Preview Germany, which presents German works in progress.
Key facts
- 11 prizes across three formats: seven at the DOK Co-Pro Market, three for two projects at DOK Short n’ Sweet, one at DOK Preview Germany
- Largest cash award: the €5,000 Saxon Award, for Jūratė Samulionytė’s Two of Us
- Largest prize in kind: €10,000 of post-production services from D-Facto Motion, for Julius Gintaras Blum’s EASTKIDS
- A1 won the €2,000 Verità Films Award and a residency at the Jacob Burns Film Center in the US
DOK Co-Pro Market
The Saxon Award goes to the best documentary project by a female director and is funded by Saxony’s Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism. This year it went to Samulionytė’s Two of Us.
Farah’s A1 won the Verità Films Award for best project, given to a documentary judged able to travel across platforms and major festivals. It also took the Jacob Burns Film Center Residency Award: a stay of two to four weeks with travel, housing and a $500 weekly stipend, plus use of the centre’s cinema and its Media Arts Lab for editing, sound and animation.
Isaac Knights-Washbourn’s Fallout received the Deutsche Welle Award of €1,500, which the broadcaster gives to a project dealing with urgent current issues. Sophie Ataya’s Who We Are won the No Nation Films Fellowship, six months of tailored mentoring and consultancy for teams working in difficult or unstable conditions.
The Unifrance and GRAP awards came as services. Shorena Tevzadze’s Concrete Grassland won the Unifrance Doc Award with TitraFilm, worth €2,300 in subtitling plus a €1,590 Unifrance membership for its French producer. Almira Saifullina’s Dala won the GRAP Archive Award, a €500 consultation with an archive producer, for a project built heavily on archival footage.
Short n’ Sweet and Preview Germany
At DOK Short n’ Sweet, Anna Dziapshipa’s Daughter of the Moon won a festival strategy consultation from Square Eyes. Elza Gubanova’s Black Waters won two prizes: a mentoring session from the Documentary Association of Europe and the Ohrfilm Award for music services.
The DOK Preview Germany prize from D-Facto Motion went to Blum’s EASTKIDS. The release does not say where the projects come from or when they are due to be finished.
For other recent festival prizes, see our reports from Morelia and El Gouna, and our report on co-production talk at Tokyo.
Our reading
Most of this money is not money. Of the 11 awards, three are cash prizes, the largest €5,000, and the Jacob Burns residency adds a $500 weekly stipend. The rest are services such as subtitling, post-production time and mentoring. For projects still in development, that kind of support can be worth more than its face value, because it removes costs that small documentary budgets struggle to cover and connects teams with people who can help them finish.
The spread of partners also tells producers where to look next. The partners range from a public broadcaster to a French promotion body and a US arts centre, which gives the winners an early contact in several markets. The test of the market will be how many of these titles return to Leipzig, or appear elsewhere, as completed films.