Three Werkleitz-Supported Productions Selected for DOK Leipzig 2026

Three productions supported by Werkleitz have been selected for Focus East, a new section at this year’s DOK Leipzig: 10 bis 20 Halden by Emerson Culurgioni, Ortsteil Autobahn by Luci Schwingen and Richard Rothfeld, and Silicon Saxony by Leon Meschede. The International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film takes place from October 26 to November 1, 2026.

10 bis 20 Halden (Germany 2026, 27 min) by Emerson Culurgioni was produced as part of an artistic research project (Agentur für Aufbruch), focusing on the 2025 annual theme, Water and Soil. The film turns its attention to an East German mining landscape, connecting questions of land, resources, and labor with themes of home and loss. The land is gone, but the spoil heaps remain. Starting from this tension, the film develops an associative reflection on a landscape in transformation.
Ortsteil Autobahn (Germany 2026, 10 min) by Luci Schwingen and Richard Rothfeld explores the contradictions in how Germany’s division and contemporary displacement are addressed. On the 35th anniversary of German reunification, the Marienborn Memorial commemorates the systematic violence of the GDR regime and celebrates the overcoming of Germany’s division. Just one kilometer away, refugees have been housed in former border troops’ barracks for 35 years. This documentary short draws attention to contemporary forms of violence that remain overlooked behind the façade of the former border. The film is nominated for the German Competition Documentary Film.
Silicon Saxony (Germany 2026, 13 min) by Leon Meschede was produced as part of PMMC 2025. The film follows the construction of Europe’s largest semiconductor factory in Dresden while tracing the history of a site that was once the center of East Germany’s microelectronics industry. Between industrial past and technological future, a vision of utopia emerges—one whose traces continue to shape the present.

All three films will premiere at DOK Leipzig 2026.