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Film und Medien Stiftung NRWNewsNewsNRW@Tel Aviv: State of NRW and Filmstiftung cooperating with Docaviv Documentary Film Festival

NRW@Tel Aviv: State of NRW and Filmstiftung cooperating with Docaviv Documentary Film Festival

Docaviv – the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival begins on Thursday, May 11. More than 130 national and international productions will be presented until 20 May in a programme including five competition sections. Docaviv is the only Israeli film festival dedicated exclusively to the documentary film genre.

As part of a cooperation between the Office of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for Business, Science, Education, Youth and Culture in Israel, the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre in Tel Aviv, the Filmstiftung-backed documentary "Dancing Pina" (Fontäne Film) will be shown in the presence of the director Florian Heinzen-Ziob. The homage in dance to Pina Bausch, which recently had a brilliant cinema release in France, will be screened at Docaviv on Sunday, 14, Monday, 15, and Friday, 19 May. The screenings will be accompanied by discussions and dance workshops with the choreographers portrayed in the film, Josephine Ann Endicott and Anique Ayiboe. The State Office in Israel and the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW had previously cooperated in November 2021 on a presentation of the Filmstiftung-backed documentary "Trans I Got Life" by Doris Metz and Imogen Kimmel at the Tel Aviv International LGBTQ Film Festival.

"No other federal state promotes the domestic film industry with so much impact," according to Nathanael Liminski, Minister for Federal and European Affairs, International Affairs and Media of North Rhine-Westphalia and Head of the State Chancellery. "The screenings at Docaviv are a good opportunity to present the range and diversity of our region’s productivity in the field of documentaries  to our friends in Israel. The feature documentary 'Dancing Pina' by the director Florian Heinzen-Ziob, who was born in Duisburg and lives in Cologne, is particularly appropriate here. Drawing on the artistic legacy of the famous choreographer Pina Bausch, it documents the creative spirit of the film region of North Rhine-Westphalia."

"Documentary film is one of the defining genres of the local filmmaking scene and a successful aspect of our funding portfolio and artist portraits one of the most successful genres!" says Petra Müller, CEO of the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. "That’s why we are delighted that the highly acclaimed documentary 'Dancing Pina' is now travelling to Tel Aviv. The cooperation between the State of NRW and the Filmstiftung for special film presentations has become something of a tradition: in Berlin, at the Film Club in Brussels and now also in Tel Aviv!"

Documentaries at the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW
The funding of documentaries is one of the central tasks of the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. The Filmstiftung supports filmmakers with, among other things, the Gerd Ruge Scholarship for the development and preparation of a feature documentary, the NRW Docu Day, a professional conference for networking in the industry, and last but not least, by funding the development and production of documentaries and documentary series (such as "Höllental", "Polizeikommando", "Capital B. Wem gehört Berlin?"). Successful documentaries funded by the Filmstiftung in recent years have included "Pina", "Gerhard Richter Painting", "Die Unbeugsamen" and "Love, Deutschmarks and Death – Ask, Mark ve Ölüm" and, most recently "Seven Winters in Tehran". In addition, the Film- und Medienstiftung supports such events as the Duisburg Film Days and the "Stranger than Fiction" documentary film festival.