22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
DMZ Docs unveils International, Frontier Competition selections
Festival selects 18 titles from over 600 submissions, with 45 million won in total prizes
The DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (DMZ Docs) has announced the International and Frontier competition lineups for its upcoming 17th edition, presenting works that explore the aftermaths of historical conflict and their broader implications for global communities.
A total of 18 titles were selected from over 600 submissions by the festival's programming committee, which includes chief programmer Jang Byung-won, programmer Kang Jin-seok and film critic Lee Seung-min. Ten films will compete in the International Competition and eight in the Frontier section.
Highlights from the International Competition include "To the West, in Zapata," a black-and-white Cuban documentary that received the Jury Special Award in Visions du Reel's Burning Lights section. "La jetee, the Fifth Shot," which won the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig, examines Algeria's colonial past through family archives. Romanian-Korean co-production "Bright Future" draws on footage from the 1989 World Festival of Youth and Students in Pyongyang to offer a counter-narrative to Cold War-era spectacle.
Ongoing global conflicts are represented prominently across the selections. "Militantropos" employs direct cinema techniques to examine aspects of the Russia-Ukraine war, while Abbas Fahdel's "Tales of the Wounded Land" documents life in southern Lebanon in the wake of the Israel-Lebanon conflict.
The Frontier section showcases formally inventive works that expand the documentary form. Kamal Aljafari's "With Hasan in Gaza" reconstructs footage from 2001 to recover images of people and places now lost in Gaza. "Ancestral Visions of the Future" blends personal narration and poetic imagery to reflect on the filmmaker's own exile from Lesotho during civil unrest. In "New Beginnings," director Billy Luther follows a Vietnam War veteran on California's Native American reservation, exploring the intersection of ecological degradation and intergenerational trauma.
Launched in 2009, DMZ Docs has grown into one of Korea's leading documentary festivals. It introduced its current competition format — comprising International, Korean and Frontier sections — in 2023 as part of a broader programming overhaul.
The International and Frontier categories will award a combined 45 million won ($32,000) in prizes, including 20 million won for the International Competition Grand Prize, 10 million won for the Jury Special Award and 15 million won for the Frontier Competition Grand Prize.
The 2025 edition of DMZ Docs will take place Sept. 11-17 in Paju and Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. Its industry program, DMZ Industry, will run Sept. 12-16 as a co-production and project development platform.
