DOK.fest München has unveiled the full programme for its 41st edition, with 106 documentaries from 49 countries set to screen in Munich and online between 6 and 25 May 2026. The festival says this year’s selection includes 20 world premieres, nine international premieres and 45 German premieres, drawn from a record 1,440 submissions. The hybrid model remains central to the event’s reach, with cinema screenings running from 6 to 18 May and the digital platform DOK.fest München @home continuing across Germany from 11 to 25 May.
As in recent editions, the programme is organised through themed sections, each anchored by a signature film and a corresponding FocusTalk. Signature titles this year include Becoming Kim in the section on relationships and conflict, Whistleblower in the politics strand, One in a Million in the migration-focused section, Chosen Family in Empowered, Finding Connection in Visions of the Future, and Driving Europe, which arrives with the added visibility of the VFF Documentary Production Talent Award.
In Reframing History, Jens Schanze’s Materia Prima connects Europe’s green-transition rhetoric to Bolivia’s lithium extraction and deeper colonial continuities. In HerStory, Brydie O’Connor’s Barbara Forever offers a portrait of filmmaker Barbara Hammer, while The Sound of Music includes Ryan Marley’s Amadou et Mariam – The Blind Couple from Mali, following the celebrated Malian duo from Bamako to international fame. The programme’s political range is widened by 80 Angry Journalists, about a collective resignation in defence of press freedom, and by the African Encounters strand, where Enough Is Enough brings contemporary activism directly into the festival frame.
DOK.fest 2026 opens on 6 May at the Deutsches Theater with Regina Schilling’s hybrid portrait Ingeborg Bachmann – Jemand, der einmal ich war, in which Sandra Hüller embodies the writer through a blend of reenactment, archive and text. The film will have its world premiere at the festival.
Find more information of the full DOK.fest München programme – HERE
