Animation Takes Center Stage At DOK Leipzig 2025 – Full Competition Lineup

DOK Leipzig 2025 is putting animation at the center stage this year, using its screenings and industry events to explore the creative, technological, and economic changes reshaping the art form.

From traditional techniques to experimental works to conversations about AI’s growing influence, the festival highlights animation’s strength as both a tool for storytelling and a vital part of the film industry.

This year’s Animation Perspectives session features BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Niki Lindroth von Bahr (The Burden, The House) and Réka Bucsi (Symphony No. 42) in conversation with curator Irina Rubina. Together, they’ll discuss how to sustain personal, auteur-driven animation in an environment increasingly shaped by efficiency and market demands.

On Friday, Animation Night, curated by Ben Sassen, revisits the video synthesizer revolution of the 1960s and its lasting impact on moving-image art. The program celebrates the pioneers who turned analogue signal manipulation and feedback loops into a new visual language.

The DOK Industry program will dedicate a significant portion of its Thursday schedule to animation. The panel AI in Animation – Curse, Blessing or Both, organized by AG Animationsfilm, examines how generative tools are changing creative practice and audience perception. Anidox Lab – The Alchemy of Animated Documentaries looks at how animation opens new narrative possibilities for nonfiction, featuring Rand Beiruty, Ayala Shoshana Guy, Irina Rubina, and tutor Uri Kranot.

The Animation Lab DOK Leipzig, presented with CEE Animation, returns with eight projects from eleven countries. Led by Jean-François Le Corre (Flee) and Uri Kranot, the lab supports producers developing their first animated documentaries through mentoring on story, financing, and distribution.

Other highlights include the Punto y Raya masterclass on abstract animation, DOK Talk: Behind the Screens with competition filmmakers, and networking events such as Shorts, Screened and Streamed; DOK Short n’ Sweet; and Get Together XR & Animation, co-hosted by SEE NL, AG Animationsfilm, and the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film.

Across its screenings and discussions, DOK Leipzig 2025 positions animation as both an art form and an industry driver.

Of this year’s animation competition, which includes features and shorts, the festival says:

Line, surface, colour, light, movement, time. Animated films are capable of creating an almost endless wealth of interpretations, transformations and reinventions of inner and outer realities from just a few primary materials. In this competition, international animation filmmakers demonstrate the narrative and technical innovativeness of their art, in both pointed short and feature-length formats.

2025 International Competition: Animated Film

• Amarelo Banana, Alexandre Sousa (Portugal, Hungary)
• Ancestor, Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume (United Kingdom)
• The Balcony’s View, Stella Hood (Germany)
• Balentes, Giovanni Columbu (Italy, Germany)
• Bar Croquette Freestyle, Maria Dakszewicz (Poland)
• Blinded by the Lights, Francis Yushau Brown (Ghana)
• Clot, Levi Stoops (Belgium)
• Death Does Not Exist, Félix Dufour-Laperrière (Canada, France)
• Endless Cookie, Seth Scriver, Peter Scriver (Canada)
• EX-tract, Marcel Barelli (Switzerland)
• Floating, Jelena Milunović (Serbia, Croatia, Germany)
• Force Times Displacement, Angel Yun Wu (Taiwan)
• Four Percent, Monika Masłoń (Germany, Poland)
• God Is Shy, Jocelyn Charles (France)
• The Great History of Western Philosophy, Aria Covamonas (Mexico)
• How a River Is Born, Luma Flôres (Brazil)
• The In-The-Head Film, Konstantin von Sichart (Germany)
• Jinsei, Ryuya Suzuki (Japan)
• Kyiv Cake, Mykyta Lyskov (Estonia)
• Lights, Haze, Tata Managadze (Georgia, Portugal, Belgium, Finland)
• Lina, Remo Rauscher (Austria)
• Murmuration, Janneke Swinkels, Tim Frijsinger (Netherlands, Belgium)
• Once in a Body, María Cristina Pérez (Colombia, United States)
• Paradaïz, Matea Radic (Canada)
• Passageways, Milla Cummings, Geneviève Tremblay (Canada)
• Petra and the Sun, Malu Furche, Stefania Malacchini (Chile)
• Ping Pong, Tianji Yu (Belgium, Hungary, Portugal, China)
• Ploo, Jon Frickey (Germany)