Who can still change course?
Films that act.
Documentary film programme for children and young people 

The documentary film programme for children and young people doxs! is taking place for the sixth time at steirischer herbst 2012, screening films that relate to the theme of the festival and which deal with topics, problems, but also the visual language and aesthetic of children and young people. The aim of the programme is to present documentary film cultures as relevant narrative strategies in contemporary film and to work towards establishing alternative skills for a critical, reflective, expert and autonomous handling of the film medium. Here again, as a cross-discipline festival, steirischer herbst not only intervenes in current artistic debates, but also in current media education strategies.

Film programme
05/09 - 28/09
Camp: Black Cube

Like no other film genre, documentary film has always been caught between two stools. Faced, on the one hand, with the task of discreetly observing reality and not interfering, documentary work was, on the other hand, tasked with saving the world instead of just describing it. Be it propaganda, agitprop or motion video – documentary film seemed to make a different world possible. If we detach documentary film from a representative mesh of “true or false depiction of the world” in favour of a perspective which interacts with reality at different levels, it becomes clear that: “Documentary practice always implies action, as it is not an automatic depiction of reality. Not even a weather webcam is.” (Hito Steyerl in an interview with Reinhard Braun, Camera Austria 2011) The film programme “Wer reißt hier noch was rum?” presents documentary films dealing with social and political action in the lifeworld of children and young people: films with ecological instructions for action (“Zukunft”), about democratic self-determination (“The game must go on”) or the ambivalently formulated right to leisure (“Rentner und Studenten”). The films focus on concrete models of action in social intervention (“Once upon a hill”) and individual strategies for coping with socio-political problems (“One way – a Tuareg Journey”) as well as on how young people are faced with social distinction every day (“Pandore”). Between representation and intervention, the films negotiate artistic and political strategies of documentary film and open up scopes for action and suggestions for our own social and political action.