The Munich International Documentary Film Festival (DOK.fest München) was founded in 1985 and takes place annually in May in Munich, Germany. Since 2001 it has been organized by the non-profit association Internationales Dokumentarfilmfestival München in cooperation with the Filmstadt München. The festival focusses on documentary films that deal with socially relevant topics and are of artistic value. The 40th DOK.fest has held from May 12-25, 2025.
The business manager and artistic director of the 40th DOK.fest was Daniel Sponsel and deputy director was Adele Kohout. On February 12, 2025, it was announced that Sponsel is set to become president of the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (HFF) in October 2025. At that time, Adele Kohout, will become the new festival director and her deputy will be Maya Reichert, who has been director of the festival's educational programm DOK.education.
The DOK.fest München is one of the largest documentary film festivals in Europe. In 2020 it was the first festival in Germany to take place exclusively online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Again in 2021 the festival went virtual, with 131 films from 43 countries being watched by over 71,000 viewers. The 37th DOK.fest München in 2022 was the first to be held as a dual-track event. This dual format is still in use as of 2025, with online access to selected films continuing for one week after the public screenings in Munich venues.
The DOK.fest München was established at the initiative of the Bavarian section of the German film industry association and lobby organisation "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dokumentarfilm (AG DOK)" with the goal of making documentary films more popular and accessible to a broader audience. In cooperation with the association <nowiki></nowiki>Filmstadt München<nowiki></nowiki>, a consortium of local film-related groups and with support from the city of Munich, the first festival was held in 1985 under the leadership of Gudrun Geyer, who directed the festival until 2001.
Following the departure of Gudrun Geyer, Hermann Barth took over the festival on behalf of the newly founded non-profit association "Internationales Dokumentarfilmfestival München e.V." with the express goal of raising the festival's profile within Germany and around the world. Since 2002 the festival has adopted "DOK.fest" as its brand name and expanded the number of sections on the annual program.
In 2009 Daniel Sponsel became the new director, working together with the business manager Christian Pfeil. He added such sections as DOK.deutsch; a guest series; a retrospective section; and an educational series named DOK.education. Since 2011 the platform DOK.forum has served to promote the film branch and encourage the participation of young filmmakers.
In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic an online platform for screening was established under the name DOK.fest München @home. In addition to online film screenings, the platform offered live online discussions with filmmakers.
A special platform with restricted access for members of the film industry offers online workshops, pitchings and discussion panels. An educational program for school classes is made available on the platform DOK.education with links and teaching materials designed for three different age groups.
The festival program includes competition sections, theme sections and special series. Current international documentary films with a length of at least 52 minues are screened. Film premieres are given special consideration in the competition sections. In 2025 the 16 prizes awarded in connection with the festival had a total value 64,200 Euro. The award statue given in each of the three main competition categories is named the VIKTORIA. Before 2025 it had been called VIKTOR.
This award is sponsored by the Bavarian public broadcaster Bayerischen Rundfunk.
This award is sponsored by the German media company Sky Deutschland.
This award is sponsored by the German charitable foundation Petra-Kelly-Stiftung.
The following awards are given in special categories of filmmaking.