The Leipzig International Documentary Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, will introduce the new “Fokus Ost” section at its 69th edition, dedicated to expanding the presence of East German perspectives in documentary cinema. The section, initiated by festival director Ola Staszel, will bring together ten films, eight of which will have their world premieres.

The section will be curated by filmmaker, author, and former DOK Leipzig Head of Programming Grit Lemke, and will include films such as Die Klasse von 1990, about Rostock students’ protests against the closure of a branch of the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts during the period of German reunification; Onkel Thuận, which focuses on the lives of two former Vietnamese contract workers in the German Democratic Republic; and Garten der Hoffnung, which portrays a garden transformed into a vibrant meeting place amid a housing estate in Schwerin.

The opening film will be Guten Abend, du Schöne, directed by Ina Borrmann, who reconnects with some of the women interviewed for Maxie Wander’s 1977 book Guten Morgen, du Schöne. Decades later, the documentary returns to their lives and revisits the conversations about personal experiences, gender, and life under patriarchy that made the book a landmark of German feminist literature.

The film will be screened publicly and free of charge on October 26 at 8:30 p.m. in the Osthalle of Leipzig Central Station. On October 30, the festival will also host the discussion “East German Perspectives in Documentary Film,” organized in collaboration with the weekly newspaper der Freitag, addressing how these experiences are represented, the challenges faced by filmmakers, and the different pathways their films take to reach cinemas, television, streaming platforms, and media libraries. Four films from “Fokus Ost” will also be part of the German Documentary Competition.