Ljubljana Documentary Film Festival

The 25th Ljubljana Documentary Film Festival, Ljubljana 2023.

The Ljubljana Documentary Film Festival is a specialised competitive event established in 1998. It focuses on contemporary documentary film production, particularly films addressing social issues and phenomena. The Amnesty International Slovenia Human Rights Film Award is bestowed upon the best film in the competition section Human rights films addressing some of the most critical issues worldwide from the rights of underprivileged women, minorities, labour migrants or political asylum seekers, to environmental concerns and religious fundamentalism. The 8-day festival occurs annually in March at Cankarjev dom, Cultural and Congress Centre, the Slovenian Cinematheque and Kinodvor Cinema.

Background

With the success of the briefly lived section for documentaries at the Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) between 1994–1996, it became apparent that documentary film production had its audience, even a large one, although documentaries were rarely – if at all – screened in cinemas.

Two years later, the Ljubljana Documentary Film Festival was established as a specialised, non-competitive festival that offered a general, quite unselective overview of contemporary documentary film production. Later, it introduced a competitive section for Mountain and Adventure Films (in 2007, it became the Mountain Film Festival).

Since 2007, when Simon Popek became the festival's director and selector, it has transformed into a specialised competitive event that focuses on contemporary documentary film production, particularly films addressing social issues and phenomena.

From its inception, the festival has been produced by Cankarjev dom, Cultural and Congress Centre, with its programme co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.

Sections and awards

The Documentary Film Festival has 5 sections: Competitive; Current (Socio-critical); Intimate and Global Portrayals; Myths, Icons, Media; and Retrospective.

The main Competitive section, introduced in 2009 at the 11th Documentary Film Festival, is prepared in collaboration with Amnesty International Slovenia and is dedicated to documentaries that deal with human rights issues. Each year, 5 or 6 films compete for the Amnesty International Slovenia Award for the best film on human rights issues. The winning film is selected by an international jury composed of three members (chosen by Amnesty International Slovenia).

The Myths, Icons, Media section includes films on cultural icons, social and cultural phenomena, music and film stars, trends in mass culture and arts. The Intimate Portrayals section offers intimate encounters with well-known personalities or ordinary people, while the Currents (Socio-critical)) section brings films that critically focus on current social issues. The last is the Retrospective section which presents domestic and foreign directors or national productions. In the past years, this section brought personal retrospectives of Jože Pogačnik, Mako Sajko, Nicolas Philibert, Raymond Depardon, as well as an overview of Bosnian documentary film production, in the year 2025 the retrospective of Slovenian film director Maja Weiss.

Some films screened at the festival are later distributed by Cankarjev dom and screened in various theatres, including Cankarjev dom's Kosovel Hall and Kinodvor Cinema).