The International Documentary Film FestivalDocville is an annual documentary film festival set in Leuven, Belgium. Docville was founded in 2005 as a thematical series within the arthouse movie theatre Cinema ZED. In the next edition the festival added competitive sections and became independent of the movie theatre. Docville takes place each year in different locations within the city of Leuven. It is the only annual, competitive documentary-only film festival in Belgium. In June 2018 the festival announced it is one of 28 film festivals in the world whose jury award winning film will be placed on the longlist of the documentary feature category for the Academy Awards The 16th edition was postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis to September 25th - October 3rd 2020.
Programming
The festival has three main competitions: Jury award for best Belgian documentary, Jury award for best international documentary and Jury award for best documentary within the ConScience competition. Next to these recurring section, the festival has each year a selection of non-competitive programming, which vary each year. The festival focuses on auteur driven documentaries: documentaries that reflect the director's personal creative vision with regards to cinematography, content, structure, productional context,...
Awards
1st edition Docville No awards 2nd edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: Rwanda, Les Collines Parlent
Best international documentary: Last Supper
3rd edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: Het Rijksadministratief Centrum
Best international documentary: The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun
4th edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: Le Flic, La Juge et L'assassin
Best international documentary: Stranded
5th edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: Zondag Gaat Het Gebeuren
Best international documentary: '
6th edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: Vlasman
Best international documentary: How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster?
7th edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: L'Ile Déserte
Best international documentary: Marwencol
ConScience award: Rainmakers
8th edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: Empire of Dust
Best international documentary: Il Castello
ConScience award: The Ambassador
9th edition Docville
Best Belgian documentary: Behind the Redwood Curtain
In 2014 Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal introduced her newest documentary, Watermark. As well as Freda Kelly, former secretary of The Beatles and the subject of Good Ol' Freda. Austrian documentary film maker Erwin Wagenhofer will be presenting his newest film, Alphabet as well as giving a masterclass during the festival.
In 2016 British documentary film maker Louis Theroux presented his first feature-length documentary My Scientology Movie in European premiere.
