EIGHT POLISH FILMS IN THE DOK LEIPZIG 2026 PROGRAMME
Five documentaries and three animated films have been selected for the 69th edition of DOK Leipzig, one of the world’s leading festivals dedicated to documentary and animated film. Polish productions will be presented across the international competitions, the Audience Competition, programmes for younger audiences and the special Animation Night section. This year’s festival will take place in Leipzig from 26 October to 1 November.
Founded in 1955, DOK Leipzig is the world’s oldest documentary film festival and the first festival to bring documentary and animation together within a single profile. This year’s Polish selection is a particularly good example of how fluid the boundaries between these forms can be today, with several of the selected documentaries incorporating animation, collage and archival material as integral parts of their storytelling.
POLISH DOCUMENTARIES IN THE DOK LEIPZIG COMPETITIONS
Three Polish titles have been selected for the International Competition Documentary Film.
“Blossoming” by Kamila Serwicka is an intimate portrait of the director, her two sisters and their mother, whose lives have been profoundly affected by the father’s alcoholism. When he leaves, the women are given a chance to begin a new chapter, but this change also raises difficult questions about years spent living with abuse, family bonds and the struggle to reclaim one’s own space. Over the course of five years, Serwicka observes their gradual emergence from a reality that for a long time seemed impossible to change.
Also competing is Helena Stańczyk’s short film “I’m Painting a Self-Portrait, but All I See Is My Sister’s Face”. The film explores the work of twin sisters Alicja and Bożena Wahl, important figures on the Warsaw art scene, bringing their drawings to life through animation and combining them with collages and excerpts from Alicja’s diaries from the 1960s and 1970s. The result is an animated documentary about artistic symbiosis, sisterhood and the search for one’s own identity.
The third Polish title in the International Competition Documentary Film is “Letters from the Silenced Country” by Andrei Kutsila, a German-Lithuanian-Polish co-production addressing contemporary repression in Belarus. The director interweaves the stories of people who have been imprisoned, persecuted or forced into exile, using private correspondence, surveillance footage, archival material and animation based on drawings made in prison. The film becomes a polyphonic account of state violence, but also of solidarity, dignity and attempts to preserve one’s humanity under political terror.
Michał Marczak’s “Closure” has been selected for the Audience Competition. The film begins with the disappearance of 16-year-old Krzysztof, last seen on a bridge over the Vistula River. His father, Daniel, refuses to give up the search, turning to drones, metal detectors, tracking devices and every method available to him, while Marczak follows closely, creating a moving portrait of a family suspended between hope, grief and the painful absence of answers.
The fifth Polish documentary, “Growing Up” by Adam Roszkowski, will be presented in the Young Eyes section and will have its world premiere in Leipzig. Over five years, Roszkowski follows Łukasz, a teenager who dreams of becoming a professional boxer and moves more than 500 kilometres away from home to attend a sports boarding school. Training routines, new friendships and first love come together in an intimate coming-of-age story about independence, ambition and the sacrifices demanded by competitive sport.
POLISH ANIMATION
Poland will be represented in the International Competition Animated Film by Maria Dakszewicz’s “Summer of Smooth Asphalt”, which will have its international premiere at DOK Leipzig. The film begins on a hot summer night at a fairground, when a sudden power cut brings the music, screams and speeding rides to a halt. In the unexpected silence, a discarded radio begins to tell stories of hidden feelings, secret relationships and dreams belonging to people usually lost in the noise and spectacle. Through ellipses, sound and visual distortions, Dakszewicz captures a brief suspension of time before the lights come back on and the excess begins again.
A very different journey is offered by “Swarm” by Kamil Czapiga / Cosmodernism, presented as part of Animation Night. The artist works with sounds generated from data collected by three European Space Agency satellites studying the Earth’s magnetic field, combining them with abstract imagery created from oils, coloured water and magnetic fluids. The result is an experimental audiovisual experience that transforms entirely earthly materials into images that seem almost otherworldly.
Younger audiences will also have the chance to see Michał “Śledziu” Śledziński’s “Tiny Fox and Great Boar” in the Kids DOK section. Based on Berenika Kołomycka’s popular Polish comic-book series, the story follows Fox and Boar as they set off on an autumn journey towards a great tree still covered in falling leaves. Along the way, Fox faces a series of unexpected challenges in an adventure about friendship, courage and discovering the world. The production’s international title is “Tiny Fox and Great Boar”.
This year’s Polish presence at DOK Leipzig ranges from intimate family stories and coming-of-age narratives to political testimony, experimental cinema and animation for children. Particularly striking is the way different cinematic languages overlap: “I’m Painting a Self-Portrait, but All I See Is My Sister’s Face” and “Letters from the Silenced Country” are both part of the documentary programme, yet animation becomes one of their key tools for exploring memory, emotion and testimony.
The 69th edition of DOK Leipzig will take place from 26 October to 1 November 2026. The programme comprises a total of 217 films and XR works.