DOCVILLE 2023 - Program | DOCVILLE - Documentary Film Festival Leuven, Belgium

DOCVILLE 2023 - Programme

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ScienceVille for kids (workshops, screenings and expo)

9 to 5: The Story of a Movement

In the early 1970s, a lot of women worked as secretaries or typists. Not feeling represented by the labour movement, they were more than tired of being marginalised: their competences curtailed to fetching coffee, being called girl or sweetheart and no...

artist-in-focus-steven-bognar
A Compassionate Spy

Two-time Oscar-nominated director Steve James tells the incredible story of Ted Hall, a very young physics genius recruited in 1944 to help develop the US atomic bomb. With Germany clearly losing the war, Hall became increasingly worried about the...

spectrum
After Nature

The biodiversity crisis should worry us as much as the climate crisis according to a lot of experts. Species are dying out so fast that scientists speak of a possible "sixth mass extinction. The global impact of humans goes further than ever. Four...

scienceville
After Work

Work, work, work. Our job is often crucial to our identity, and we spend more time on it than time with family or friends. In South Korea, they work so much that computers are compulsorily turned off at the end of the day so that employees can no longer...

topics
AI - What's Going On?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already an integral part of our lives. In social life, the economy, healthcare, the military, traffic and education...there are more and more - sometimes unexpected - applications in all areas. And the end is nowhere near...

scienceville
AI AI AI - Live podcast

We can no longer ignore it: artificial intelligence is everywhere in our society. But what exactly does it mean? Come listen to the live recording of AI AI AI, the podcast about serious and not so serious applications of artificial intelligence in our...

docville-plus
All that breathes

Towering high above the overcrowded, noisy and hectic streets of New Delhi, a lone bird of prey soars through the sky. At first glance, the majestic black kite seems spared from the swirling bustle and ubiquitous pollution deep below him. But nothing...

international-selection
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

The opiate crisis in the United States continues to claim victims. For passionate photographer and activist Nan Goldin, it is clear who is responsible for the - often fatal - addiction of millions of Americans to painkillers: the infamous Sackler family...

spectrum
American Factory

2008. The General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio is closing its doors causing thousands of people to lose their jobs. Years later, the arrival of a new Chinese company brings some hope. At first the American and Chinese craftsmen work side by side, but...

artist-in-focus-steven-bognar
ANHELL69

A funeral car drives through the streets of Medellín as a young director recounts his past in this violent and conservative city. He recalls the production of his first film, a B-movie with ghosts. The film seems cursed, when the lead actor dies of a...

outside-the-dox
Apolonia, Apolonia

For thirteen years, Danish filmmaker Lea Glob follows artist Apolonia Sokol. In 2009, the young woman's life looks like any artist's ultimate dream: she studies in Paris at one of Europe's most prestigious art schools. But fairy tales do not exist,...

international-selection
Beer Tasting Lambiek

Join us at the Lambiek Beer Tasting, right after the screening of Bottle Conditioned
Beest

Walter Arfeuille has everything of a tragic hero. All his life he wants to be the strongest and the toughest. He will do anything to beat his great rival, muscle-man John Massis, known in Flanders as "the strongest man". His obsession drives him to...

belgian-selection
Bottle Conditioned

Belgium is known worldwide for its beer. Oscar-nominated director Jerry Franck travels to the small Belgian community near Brussels where the local beer Lambic is brewed. Lambic is one of the oldest, rarest beer styles in Belgium and was almost lost...

spectrum
Catching the Pirate King

In 2009, the Belgian ship Pompeii was harshly hijacked by Somali pirates. A remarkable, blood-curdling story that has little in common with the nostalgic rebellious Hollywood image the word piracy evokes. The pirates, moving in small rowboats, have...

belgian-selection
CLOSING NIGHT & Award Ceremony - A Bunch of Amateurs

The love of film already brought about many wonderful things. For example, the Bradford film club, a somewhat shabby club for amateur filmmakers, founded in 1932 and still alive and kicking. Or should we say... teetering on the brink of survival. The...

spectrum
Coup de Grace

A few years ago, Alain Platel, renowned choreographer, invited twelve musicians from Kinshasa for a unique performance, a special symbiosis of baroque and African music. During the two-year tour through Europe, the musicians constantly oscillate...

belgian-selection
Dag Ma

Mother Irene (103) and daughter Yvette (62) are inseparable. Because Yvette has a mental disability, she is allowed to live with her elderly mother in an assisted care center. But Irene's advanced age inevitably raises questions about what to do with...

belgian-selection
Day of the Doc 2023

Traditionally, professional documentary makers come together on the last day of DOCVILLE for the annual Day of the Doc. We start with the screening of Subject, followed by a panel discussion about the relationship between documentary maker and his...

docville-academy
De Humani Corporis Fabrica

Have you ever seen the inside of your own body? This documentary takes you on a journey through the body. Quite literally. During surgeries, endoscopic cameras discover the body from the inside and give anatomy lessons. Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing...

scienceville
Deep Rising

Almost every spot on Earth has already become the target of man in search of valuable resources. But now a new hitherto unexplored area is coming into focus: the deep ocean floor. There, coveted metals needed for the production of electric batteries can...

topics
Dreaming Walls

The legendary Chelsea Hotel, an icon of 1960s counterculture and a haven for famous artists and intellectuals including Patti Smith, Janis Joplin and the superstars of Warhol's Factory, is under renovation. Soon it will reopen to the public as one of New...

belgian-selection
Echo

Young recruits undergo a basic military training in the Belgian army. The amiable commander Van Dyck tries to teach them a new way of looking, listening and thinking through role-playing. An intriguing insight into training within the Belgian army, one...

belgian-selection
Escaperoom: AI, deadline gemist!

Oh no! You missed your paper deadline for the Data Science course. Fortunately, Professor Intelligentius accidentally left the keys to her office in the auditorium after the last class. Can you sneak your paper in among the other papers without getting...

scienceville
Free Money

The Kenyan village of Kogutu is the site of one of the biggest test cases on the impact of a universal basic income. For 12 years, every resident will receive a fixed monthly amount, with no strings attached. This strong, nuanced documentary follows...

topics
From Moerbeke with Love

Far away from home, in the small Flemish village of Moerbeke-Waas, Marta and her female colleagues are planting the seeds for the future of their children in Poland. Somewhere between east and west, distance and proximity, Marta cares about her home...

short-docs
Geographies of Solitude

Living in harmony with nature, it is a dream of many, but a reality for Zoe Lucas. She has lived on the nearly uninhabited Canadian island known as Sable Island for 40 years. As naturalist and conservationist, she studies and meticulously maps nature...

scienceville
Ghost Particle

A neutrino: one of the most intriguing elementary particles in physics. So small that they pass through the entire earth in a fraction of a second without anything getting in their way, (almost) without mass and extremely difficult to detect. But perhaps...

scienceville
Growing Up Female & Union Maids

In six short portraits, this landmark documentary from 1971 zooms in on what it means to grow up as a woman during that period. Six girls and women aged 5 to 34 open up their hearts and reflect on how their lives and self-image is defined by institutions...

artist-in-focus-steven-bognar
Het Bijzondere Levensverhaal van Karl Eriksson

The wonderful life story of Karl Eriksson, passionate musician, fervent world traveler and free spirit, always on the road and tirelessly searching. He grows up as the son of Bert Eriksson, former leader of the notorious Order of Flemish Militants...

spectrum
Hetty Helsmoortel: Missie 2022

In Mission 2022, Hetty Helsmoortel once again delivers a sharp analysis of the past year of science. She does so in her signature style: clear (??? want geen H-woord), humorous and hopeful. As long as it starts with the letter H, Hetty must have thought...

scienceville
Holding up the Sky

'When the shamans stop dancing and life in the rainforest loses its balance, the sky will fall down and crush everything.' That wisdom is passed on from generation to generation by the Yanomami in Brazil. But prospectors are polluting the rivers, the...

belgian-selection
House made of Splinters

Three children temporarily removed from their parents find friendship and a spark of hope within the walls of an orphanage in eastern Ukraine. In this war-torn and impoverished region, where addiction casts a dark shadow over many families, three...

spectrum
Innocence

In Israel, children know from an early age that they will have to fight for their homeland. After all, once eighteen, everyone there must do compulsory army service, and in their troubled country, that multi-year service usually means actual combat. Many...

international-selection
Iraq's Invisible Beauty

Latif al Ani, father of Iraqi photography, portrayed his homeland for more than 30 years. His photographs, taken long before wars would devastate the country, show Iraq as we have rarely seen it. Al Ani fled when Saddam Hussein came to power. Now, at age...

belgian-selection
Kernenergie : De redder van de klimaatcrisis?

Until a few years ago, few were willing to speak out in public in favor of nuclear power. Now the situation seems pretty much reversed. Were we too alarming before, or are we too lenient now? With: Marco Visscher (author of Waarom we niet hoeven...

docville-plus
Kristos, the Last Child

Kristos is the only child on a small Greek island with only 30 inhabitants left. He is ten by now and the very last student of the devoted teacher Maria. As the end of elementary school approaches, Kristos and those around him face a major dilemma: move...

international-selection
Last Stop Before Chocolate Mountain

This visual gem takes you to Bombay Beach, an abandoned town situated at a toxic lake in the middle of the California desert, which is given an unexpected second life. While the desolate landscape symbolizes neglect and decay, a secret art project...

international-selection
Le Pacha, ma mère et moi

Filmmaker Nevine's childhood is all about the Kurdish cause. Her mother, a staunch activist, has defended the Kurdish people all her life, a struggle she herself inherited from her father. Now that her mother is 80 and Nevine is becoming a mom herself,...

belgian-selection
Le phallus et le néant

Eighteen psychoanalysts let themselves to be looked into their souls, and the results are quite astonishing. For today Freud's psychoanalytic theory is seen as pseudoscience by many scientists, in other words, total nonsense. Yet contemporary experts...

scienceville
Léon

Léon Vandromme, 83 years old, is a resident of a residential care center in the Marolles in Brussels. He gives us a glimpse into his life, his loneliness and his past and present loves. He was a rascal and a drunkard, but above all a nice person. Past...

short-docs
Live dissectie

A lot has changed since Vesalius taught anatomy in public in Leuven. The newest evolution in the study of anatomy is the digital dissection table. Using specific software with which 3D reconstructions of the body are made, the body can be virtually...

docville-plus
Make People Better

In late 2018, Chinese scientist He caused a shockwave in the entire scientific community. His experiment had led to the birth of babies whose DNA had been altered by scientists for the first time: he had performed an edit via CRISPR aiming to give the...

scienceville
Masterclass Steven Bognar

Oscar winner Steven Bognar (American Factory) travels from his home state of Ohio to DOCVILLE for a unique master class around the films he made during his award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker.

artist-in-focus-steven-bognar
docville-academy
Merkel

She was Germany's first female Chancellor and immediately one of the longest-serving ever. She saw no less than four American presidents come and go while at the head of one of Europe's most important countries. But who was Angela Merkel truly? Born and...

spectrum
Mi Pais Imaginario

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzmán has sometimes been referred to as "the cinematic conscience of Chile": for more than 40 years he has documented the turbulent events in his native country. At the age of 81, he made a new documentary...

spectrum
Microvioma

The inhabitants of the small Greek island of Ikaria live longer on average and also stay more healthy later in life. They are the ideal test group for scientific research on healthy ageing and longevity. A new study focuses on what goes on in...

scienceville
Nuclear Now

A plea for nuclear energy from an unexpected angle: legendary director Oliver Stone sees nuclear power as the way to tackle the climate crisis. We urgently need to reduce fossil fuel emissions and generate energy in a sustainable way. Campaigns from the...

scienceville
Once upon a Time in Londongrad

A wealthy British estate agent is impaled by a fall from the fourth floor onto the fence surrounding his luxury flat. His death raises eyebrows among a team of BuzzFeed journalists. Eventually, they come up with a list of 14 suspicious deaths - one more...

topics
Op naar de maakbare baby?

As reports emerge from China about the application of CRISPR technologies to humans, Europe is also increasingly questioning the growing possibilities. What is allowed with inherited diseases that we can avoid? And what about gender selection when there...

docville-plus
Panel discussion by and about young filmmakers and their future

De maatschappij is aan het veranderen. Hoe kijken studenten en jonge filmmakers vandaag naar het documentaire genre en hun toekomst? Waar liggen ze van wakker? Waar willen ze films over maken en op welke manier?

docville-academy
Panel discussion on audience friendliness versus uncompromisingness

Naar aanleiding van een korte lezing van Peter Krüger gaan de documentairemakers in debat over hun rol in de samenleving. Het debat draait om de centrale vraag: moeten we als onafhankelijke makers compromisloos zijn of moeten we rekening houden met de...

docville-academy
Parcours

A central city is tossed back and forth between preparations for a major festive event - the Cycling World Championships - and hostage-taking by COVID-19. Like a contemporary chronicler, director Lode Desmet films his city during a period that was...

belgian-selection
Podcast Gezondheid & Wetenschap

Eet je meer chips van een blauw bord? Hoe slim zijn slimme weegschalen? Waarom heeft Europa mentholsigaretten verboden? Zijn vaccins eigenlijk halal? Klopt het dat mannen net zo emotioneel zijn als vrouwen? Gezondheid en Wetenschap wilt mensen informeren...

scienceville
Psycho-analyse - Totale onzin?

Is psychoanalysis, once developed by Sigmund Freud, by now a outdated pseudoscience? Or is it still a valid tool within therapy? Debate with Filip Buekens (Professor of Philosophy, KU Leuven) and Jens De Vleminck (Psychoanalyst, Belgian...

docville-plus
Rebels

What kind of person do you imagine when you describe the over-75s? A cute oldie who spends days in front of the TV? Someone who only revives when the (grand)children visit? A somewhat dull and slow person with an opinion that is not really...

topics
Receive a production budget of 40,000 euros for the production of a short scientific documentary

Filmmakers, come listen to the Science Talkies where scientists explain their research. Afterwards, meet the scientists during a speed date and work out your own documentary film project. Afterwards, you as a filmmaker pitch your project. In the end, two...

docville-academy
scienceville
Red Africa

After their independence in the early 1960s, a load of Soviet ambassadors descends on some young African nations to express their enthusiastic support and offer assistance in the technical, social and cultural development of the country. All under the...

outside-the-dox
Rojek

An encounter with former fighters of the Islamic State who are imprisoned in a heavily guarded prison camp in Syrian Kurdistan. From honest conversations with jihadists about their fundamentalist beliefs, we gain an unseen insight into their motivations...

topics
Sabam Avond

Belgian Association of Authors, Composers and Publishers Sabam supports audiovisual authors in various ways. There is support for filmmakers who have already earned their stripes, but also for young and new talent. On the Sabam evening, several films...

guest-screenings
SABAM Filmmakers Pitch

Sabam for Culture has been committed to the promotion, development and dissemination of its audiovisual repertoire for decades. For example, Sabam supports directors and/or screenwriters directly through a development grant.

docville-academy
Science Talkies

Wetenschapswatcher en Nerdland-medeoprichter Hetty Helsmoortel nodigt enkele wetenschappers uit op het podium om hun onderzoek voor te stellen. Ontdek boeiende hot topics uit verschillende wetenschapsgebieden tijdens deze unieke voorstelling met...

scienceville
Solus

In Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, many parents go to work abroad to give their children a better future. The children stay at home and grow up with other relatives. So does 12-year-old Cleopatra, who lives with her grandparents and lovingly...

short-docs
Soviet Bus Stops

Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig has a crazy fondness for unusual bus stops dating from the Soviet era. Back then, everything, including architecture, was under strict central authority. Buildings had to be monumental, an ode to communism. But...

international-selection
Subject

As a documentary filmmaker, how do you deal with the subject of your documentary? Subject takes a look at five documentaries that had great commercial success and examines their impact on the lives of the people portrayed in them. Filmmakers sometimes...

spectrum
Subject in documentary

A panel discussion about the relationship between the documentary maker and his subject on the basis of the film Subject. In the presence of Camilla Hall (director Subject), Margaret Ratliff (one of the main characters of the film), Kristof...

docville-academy
Ten-Ten, Cai-Cai

When the strongest earthquake ever measured in Chile strikes an island in the south, residents give meaning to the natural disaster through their mythical stories and beliefs. Ten-Ten, Cai-Cai tells the story of an isolated community on a mysterious...

outside-the-dox
The Corridors of Power

Why do we as a modern, Western, powerful society fail to stop atrocities like the genocide in Rwanda or Srebrenica? Why do we react in some places and not in others? What are the real reasons behind the decisions of major political decision-makers? Do...

topics
The end of the world? - Short Film Compilation

Is the secret to a long and healthy life to be found in the bowel movements of inhabitants of a small Greek island? Is it possible to emigrate to another planet? Did you know that the mirror images of chiral molecules can mean the difference between life...

scienceville
The Fire Within

Katia and Maurice Krafft were two passionate volcanologists who traveled the world to get as close as possible to and film active volcanoes. Their groundbreaking footage of eruptions and their aftermath is simply stunning. Legendary documentary filmmaker...

scienceville
The Hunt for Planet B

Is there an alternative to Earth should it become unlivable due to human activity? With the development of the James Webb Telescope, astronomy has a fantastic new tool to study the universe. A special look at the capabilities of this amazing...

scienceville
The invention of the Other

What if you've never met "others" before? DOCVILLE winner Bruno Jorge (Piripkura) once again takes us in tow, deep into the Amazon jungle in search of the Korubo, a completely isolated group of indigenous people. Most of them have never had contact with...

international-selection
The Longest Goodbye

What if you were isolated from life on Earth for three long years? That is one of the challenges NASA is currently addressing as plans for a manned mission to Mars are in the pipeline. Astronauts will experience extreme isolation during the long...

scienceville
The Lost Leonardo

More than $500 million will eventually be paid for the Salvator Mundi, which is said to have first surfaced as a battered portrait of Christ at an auction in New Orleans. But is the most expensive painting of all time really a Leonardo da Vinci or is...

spectrum
The March on Rome

100 years ago, in late October 1922, fascist Blackshirts led by Mussolini marched to Rome in a grand parade. It was the beginning of Mussolini's fascist regime that would last until 1943. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins (The Story...

international-selection
The Other Fellow

Bond, James Bond. The iconic name of the legendary character was found by author Ian Fleming in 1952 by an unsuspecting birdwatcher. 60 years later, Matthew Bauer sets off on a mission to discover what it's like to be called James Bond in reality. He...

spectrum
The Thief Collector

It was one of the most puzzling art thefts of a generation: in 1985, a groundbreaking work by Willem de Kooning was cut from its frame and stolen from a museum in Arizona. For years it was untraceable. Until the precious painting was found more than...

international-selection
The Woman of Stars and Mountains

For 12 years, Rita Patiño, an indigenous woman from northern Mexico, was locked up in an psychiatric hospital in Kansas, USA, after she was found in a local church in 1983. Because she spoke neither English nor Spanish and was very afraid of the local...

international-selection
Theater of Thought

Legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog delves into the mysteries of the brain (artificial or otherwise). Do we really have autonomy over our thoughts? Do we live in a shared fantasy? Is telepathy possible? Can fish dream? Do mice question their reality? How...

scienceville
Theatre of Violence

Can a person be held accountable for the crimes he committed as a child soldier? As a nine-year-old boy, Dominic Ongwen was abducted and conscripted into Joseph Kony's army of child soldiers. He was tortured, brainwashed and forced to extreme violence....

topics
VAF Vertoningssessie

Twice a year, the Public department of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund organizes an inspirational day on striking themes for cinemas, film distributors, festivals, cultural centers and other film organizations. They will be guests at DOCVILLE on March 24....

docville-academy
Virtual Reality Experiences: Space

Virtual Reality (VR) is a rewarding medium for documentary filmmakers to transport you to places you have never been, and this year this can be taken very literally. The two impressive VR films Spheres and Space Explorers: The ISS Experience -...

scienceville
Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer

Oscar-nominated director, author, actor, poet, explorer ... Werner Herzog is it all. This biographical documentary offers not only an overview of Herzog's life and the groundbreaking films he made, but above all it shows Herzog's brilliant vision as a...

spectrum
Worden bejaarden teveel betutteld?

In recent years, some senior citizens raised the alarm over the patronization of elderly people. Why does Santa Claus come to a retirement home at all? We are quick to describe "old people" as cute or perhaps grumpy, but often no longer consider them to...

docville-plus

DOCVILLE 2023 - Programme

Search title

filter

9 to 5: The Story of a Movement

A Compassionate Spy

After Nature

After Work

AI - What's Going On?

AI AI AI - Live podcast

All that breathes

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

American Factory

ANHELL69

Apolonia, Apolonia

Beer Tasting Lambiek

Beest

Bottle Conditioned

Catching the Pirate King

CLOSING NIGHT & Award Ceremony - A Bunch of Amateurs

Coup de Grace

Dag Ma

Day of the Doc 2023

De Humani Corporis Fabrica

Deep Rising

Dreaming Walls

Echo

Escaperoom: AI, deadline gemist!

Free Money

From Moerbeke with Love

Geographies of Solitude

Ghost Particle

Growing Up Female & Union Maids

Het Bijzondere Levensverhaal van Karl Eriksson

Hetty Helsmoortel: Missie 2022

Holding up the Sky

House made of Splinters

Innocence

Iraq's Invisible Beauty

Kernenergie : De redder van de klimaatcrisis?

Kristos, the Last Child

Last Stop Before Chocolate Mountain

Le Pacha, ma mère et moi

Le phallus et le néant

Léon

Live dissectie

Make People Better

Masterclass Steven Bognar

Merkel

Mi Pais Imaginario

Microvioma

Nuclear Now

Once upon a Time in Londongrad

Op naar de maakbare baby?

Panel discussion by and about young filmmakers and their future

Panel discussion on audience friendliness versus uncompromisingness

Parcours

Podcast Gezondheid & Wetenschap

Psycho-analyse - Totale onzin?

Rebels

Receive a production budget of 40,000 euros for the production of a short scientific documentary

Red Africa

Rojek

Sabam Avond

SABAM Filmmakers Pitch

Science Talkies

Solus

Soviet Bus Stops

Subject

Subject in documentary

Ten-Ten, Cai-Cai

The Corridors of Power

The end of the world? - Short Film Compilation

The Fire Within

The Hunt for Planet B

The invention of the Other

The Longest Goodbye

The Lost Leonardo

The March on Rome

The Other Fellow

The Thief Collector