FILM PRODUCTION
VIVE LA DOK develops and produces documentary films, documentaries, documentary series, reports and web projects and co-produces with international partners: for television, cinema and for digital platforms.
To this end, VIVE LA DOK relies on an experienced network of writers, directors and editors as well as solid partnerships abroad.
We produce films with the awareness that we bear responsibility - for our colleagues, the stories and protagonists themselves and especially for the preservation and protection of our environment.
ARNOLD BÖCKLIN'S ISLE OF THE DEATH (WT) - In Production 2026
ARNOLD BÖCKLIN'S ISLE OF THE DEATH (WT)
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co-production with ZDF/arte
ES BRAUCHT EIN DORF - In Produktion 2026
ES BRAUCHT EIN DORF
A film by Melanie Lischker
90 min. – In Produktion
In Coproduction with 3Sat
Project development funded by BKM
Production funded by BKM and Filmförderung Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Systemspringer (AT) accompanies in a long term observation a youth welfare facility in Germany and dives into a microcosm which deals with urgent social issues of our time. How do children and young people cope with our world today? Which solutions do we have for those who don't seem to fit into our system? What challenges do parents and schools face when living and learning together becomes more and more difficult? And what can youth work achieve in these cases?
The film provides a sensitive insight into the world of social work, in which even educational professionals often reach the limits of what is possible in rebuilding stable and sensitive togetherness.
FRANZ MARC - 2026
Franz Marc - In Between Worlds
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co-production with ZDF/arte
The film narrates two periods in history separated by more than a century—yet disturbingly similar. The years leading up to World War I and our present days are times of intensification— marked by technological progress, social acceleration, and the sense that an existing order is coming to an end. A film about Franz Marc and three contemporary artists who, in times of existential crisis, seek a kind of art which is more than just an image —as in the period before 1914 and today in the Anthropocene era.
ELSIE (WT) - In Financing 2026
ELSIE (WT)
A film by Eva Rink
90 min. - Documentary film and curation of an exhibition in the City Museum of Wetzlar
Funded in pre-production by Hessen Film & Media GmbH
Elsie Kühn-Leitz (1903 - 1985) – daughter of the famous LEICA dynasty, lawyer, photographer, mother, rebel, great African traveler, and determined European – lived the 20th century in a unique way. Based on more than 10,000 photographs, numerous Super 8 recordings, diaries spanning over 60 years, speeches, and correspondence with the great figures of her time, the film embarks on a journey to uncover her story. It spans the last century, painting a portrait of a timelessly modern woman whose life, work, and inner struggles reflect the major challenges of the 20th century.
THE UNICORN - 2025
THU UNICORN - A cultural history of a longing
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co-production with ZDF/arte
Unicorns have inspired the human imagination for over 2000 years. Since time immemorial, we have been searching or hunting for this fabulous creature and the myths surrounding this special animal go on forever. Apart from the dragon and the mermaid, the unicorn is probably the most prominent mythical creature in human history.
The film explores why the unicorn offers this projection surface and has been triggering such a longing in us upt o this day.
Exhibition on ELSIE KÜHN-LEITZ - 2025
Exhibition on ELSIE KÜHN-LEITZ - A woman, a century
Forty years after her death, this exhibition is dedicated to the life and work of this extraordinary woman and, through her distinctly feminine perspective, sheds new light on the 20th century.
MATISSE - 2025
MATISSE. Painting new horizons
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co-production with ZDF/arte
Henri Matisse is one of the most famous artists of classical modernism. His groundbreaking work had a significant influence on his own era and on later generations of artists. By liberating colour from its subject matter and simplifying forms, he redefined painting and brought a previously unknown lightness to art. Matisse was also an innovator in sculpture, developing a distinctive interplay of painting, drawing and sculpture in his late cut-outs. The film sets out to trace the escapes of H. Matisse, who used his art to flee the difficult times of the 20th century.
RABBIT - 2024
RABBIT. Vom Hasen in der Kunst
A film by Hilka Sinning
52 min. - In co-production with ZDF/arte
The hare has always been one of the most popular animal motifs in the visual arts. Countless artists all over the world have worked with the hare. In a tour through the history of art and culture, the film explores why - of all animals - the hare exerts such a fascination and how artists have filled its ioconic silhouette with emotions and meanings.
CLIMATE, CRISIS, ART (WT) - 2024
CLIMATE, CRISIS, ART
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co-production with ZDF/arte and NAVIGATOR Film/ Austria
CLIMATE, CRISIS, ART is a cinematic survey of the current contemporary artistic engagement with climate change and its consequences. Featuring artists and experts from all over the world, the film delves into contemporary international artistic works on the subject and tells of the different positions that intenational artists from various cultural contexts take on the greatest crisis of our time: Be it in their works, in the examination of their own ecological footprint as part of the international art world, or in their own critical positioning between powerlessness, protest, activism or the creation of utopias for an uncertain future.
ABSTRACT AND RADICAL - 2023
ABSTRAKT UND RADIKAL. Mondrians Vermächtnis
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co-production with NDR/arte
Mondrian's supposedly simple compositions of initially black lines, colored squares and rectangles on a white, light blue or gray background revolutionized the art world and changed the view of pictorial reality forever. Countless artists around the world are still dealing with Mondrian's main neoplastic work today: in fashion, advertising, architecture, design and above all in art itself, making him the most widely and diversely cited artist of the 20th century.
ODE TO THE SUN - 2022
ODE TO THE SUN - An Art History
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co-production with ZDF/arte
The sun is one of the most powerful and widespread symbols that define our humanity. It is a spiritual and physical power, it embodies power, creation and destruction.
With selected artistic works from all over the world, the film approaches the subject in a special way and embarks on a journey into the history of art, culture, time and technology and tells of our relationship to the blazing star over time.
PETRO-MELANCHOLIE - 2021
PETRO-MELANCHOLIE - The Oil Age in the Mirror of Art
A film by Mathias Frick
52 min. - In co.production with NAVIGATOR Film/ Autria
Supported by VAM and the Filmfonds Austria.
Distributed by NEWDOCS
No other substance has shaped the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century as much as oil. Now, the oil age is coming to an end and our departure from this fossil fuel and its entire product range is gradually taking shape. And only now, we are becoming aware of our dependence on this substance.
Petroleum has become a black mirror of the last 150 years of human history.
In dialogue with the two petroleum experts and cultural scientists Benjamin Steininger and Alexander Klose, the film embarks on a cinematic journey back to the petro-modern era, the age of oil, and uses artworks from different times and regions of the world to tell us how deeply and naturally our lives are permeated by the cycles of oil.
