On the penultimate day of DOK Leipzig 2025, Saturday, 1 November, the juries have awarded their prizes. The Ecumenical Jury awarded its €2,000 prize to ‘Ono što treba činiti’ (The Thing to Be Done) by Srđan Kovačević and gave a Commendation to ‘Clan of the Painted Lady’ by Jennifer Chiu. The festival jury awarded the Golden Dove for a feature-length documentary in the International Competition to ‘Mirotvorac’ (Peacemaker) by Ilja Ramljak (Croatia 2025) and the Silver Dove to ‘Elephants & Squirrels’ by Gregor Brändli (Switzerland 2025). The Leipziger Ring Film Prize for a documentary film about human rights, democracy or civic engagement went to ‘A Simple Soldier’ by Artem Ryzhykov and Juan Camilo Cruz (Ukraine, USA, Great Britain 2025), while the International Film Critics' Prize (Fipresci) went to ‘L'éclipse de la lune rouge’ (The Red Moon Eclipse, Belgium 2025) by Caroline Guimbal. Altogether 32 prizes were awarded at the festival.
On Monday, 27 October, DOK Leipzig 2025 opened with Claire Simon's documentary ‘Writing Life: Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students,’ in which French teenagers study the writer Annie Ernaux in school. This was the last edition of the festival under the direction of Christoph Terhechte, who has been in charge since 2020 – a year in which DOK Leipzig had to be held in a hybrid format due to the coronavirus pandemic. In his opening speech, Terhechte pointed out the importance of culture for democratic exchange and its threat ‘from dwindling resources, political influence, self-censorship and, last but not least, indifference.’ The documentary film chosen for the opening underscored the potential and value of culture.
The Interreligious Jury, appointed by Interfilm and SIGNIS, awards a prize of €2,000 to a film from the international competition for feature-length documentaries. In 2016, it replaced the Ecumenical Jury that had been active in previous years, and usually consists of one Protestant, one Catholic, one Jewish and one Muslim member.
The festival's tribute was dedicated to American essay filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt, who, according to her website, explores themes such as American exceptionalism, the logic of utility and labor, gestures of kindness and refusal, racial violence, cowboyism, trauma and narrative and the efficacy of solitude. The retrospective was entitled ‘Un-American Activities. Collective Action’ and presented films by oppositional and critical movements and directors from the USA (such as Barbara Kopple and Emile de Antonio) since the 1960s, which received special attention in Leipzig during the GDR era.