about us

The dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg sees itself as a forum for formally challenging, thought-provoking and demanding documentary films. For films that, through their critical approach, do not only strive to clarify subject matters, but also question inscribed codes and explore the aesthetic and political possibilities of the documentary form. The festival shows a broad spectrum of productions, ranging from experimental documentaries made without broadcasters’ participation and funding to outstanding international co-productions. The program provides an insight into the diverse works of the regional, national and international scene and their expression in the festival landscape. The international film program is complemented by the discursive series of events ›Positionen‹. Since, in addition to showing documentaries, talking about them is important to us, we invite filmmakers to each event and try to make their participation possible. The first dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg took place in 2004. Since then, the festival has been organized collectively under the umbrella of the association dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg e.V..

From 2009 to 2015, the program of the dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg consisted of the competition ‘direkt’ with the Klaus Wildenhahn Award and the sections ‘Horizont’, ‘Unformatiert’ and ‘dokland hamburg’ as well as the retrospective.
For the 13th edition in 2016, the festival team decided to no longer present the art form of documentary film in the form of a competition. The sections were replaced by an international film program – without any restrictions in terms of content or form. Works from and about our city have retained a fixed place – identified as ‘dokland hamburg’.
The desire for exchange about documentary films is behind the introduction of the ‘Positionen’ series in 2016, where we debate current political and aesthetic trends in documentary film together with experts, look at historical connections, discover long-forgotten things or pay tribute to impressive filmmakers.

In order to make an artistic oeuvre or an important trend discussable, we have been taken an intensive look at various filmmakers or topics with our retrospective since 2009: Klaus Wildenhahn (2009): Marcel Ophüls (2010), Gisela Tuchtenhagen (2011), Thomas Harlan (2012), Jubiläumsprogramm 10-mal dokumentarfilmwoche (2013), Inszenierte Dokumente (2014), Chantal Akerman (2015), Wang Bing (2016), Peter Nestler (2017), Travis Wilkerson (2018) and Heynowski & Scheumann (2019). Trinh T. Minh-Ha was invited for 2020.

Team dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg 2024:

Ariane Andereggen, Thorkil Asmussen, Francesca Bertin, Anton Böhm, Anne Fiehn, Ted Gaier, Tim Gallwitz, Rasmus Gerlach, Felix Grimm, Maren Grimm, Sam Heinrichs, Eva Kirsch, Johanna Klier, Sophie Peterson, Malte Rollbühler, Bernd Schoch, Antje Strohkark.