DokuTalks
DokuTalks brings together filmmakers, thinkers and audiences for urgent conversations about film and society.
Short Film Forum
A DokuFest platform supporting young filmmakers to develop, present and advance short film projects.
Forum Guest Country: Italy
DokuFest's partnership with the Italian Short Film Center welcomes Italy as the Forum's 2026 Guest Country, connecting Italian projects, filmmakers and archival cinema with Balkan producers, funds and decision-makers. This partnership is supported by Italian Embassy in Prishtina and Istituto Italiano di Cultura - Tirana.
Sunday, August 9
17:00
Shkolla e Muzikes 'Lorenc Antoni'
DokuTalks
After Silence: Film, Testimony and Justice after Conflict-Related Sexual Violence
How can film address women's experiences of war and gender-based violence without reproducing harm or reducing survivors to what happened to them? Moving from testimony and the visible and hidden traces of war in Ukraine, through the lasting consequences of wartime sexual violence in Kosovo, to an intimate story of femicide, family absence and fear in Mexico, this DokuTalk explores how filmmakers use memory, digital traces and performance to create spaces for recognition, solidarity and justice.
It asks what responsibilities filmmakers carry when personal loss enters public memory, and how cinema can preserve dignity and complexity while respecting survivors' right to shape their own stories.
This DokuTalk is organized by DokuFest in collaboration with Pro Peace Kosovo, with the support of Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Panelists
Dr. Feride Rushiti - founder and Executive Director of KRCT, whose long-term work has helped survivors of wartime sexual violence in Kosovo access rehabilitation, legal recognition and reparations.
Alisa Kovalenko - Ukrainian filmmaker and co-director of Traces.
Karla Condado - Mexican filmmaker and director of Miriam.
Eralda L. Lameborshi - scholar of world literature and film whose current research examines how Kosovar cinema represents war, women's lives and unresolved absence.
Moderated by
Sanjin Pejković - a film scholar and critic based in Sweden whose work examines memory, trauma and the film cultures of the former Yugoslavia.
Traces, directed by Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk, follows six Ukrainian women who survived conflict-related sexual violence and are working together for recognition, truth and justice. Their testimony becomes both a public record and a source of solidarity, while the film allows them to be seen beyond their traumatic experiences.
It screens in the Human Rights Dox competition on Saturday, 8 August, at 17:30 at Teatri Bekim Fehmiu – Salla e Madhe, and on Sunday, 9 August, at 15:30 at Teatri Bekim Fehmiu – Salla e Vogël.
Miriam takes the form of a filmed letter from Karla Condado to her aunt, whose femicide left an absence across the family. Replying to a message that was never sent, the director reflects on grief, inherited fear and what it means to break a long family silence.
It screens in the International Short Dox competition on Monday, 10 August, at 12:30 at Teatri Bekim Fehmiu – Main Hall, and on Thursday, 13 August, at 10:30 at Kino Art Theatre.
Admission to DokuTalks is free. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
More in DokuTalks
Hybrid Cinema as Political Language
When the past, cultural legacies, and material heritage are forcibly erased or destroyed, how do filmmakers respond? This panel asks whether hybrid cinema can forge a new political language, one capable of challenging official narratives and reimagining what has been lost.
Inherited Memory
How do filmmakers create a relationship with home when home is remembered, inherited, lost, or politically unreachable? Is home a place, a language, a family story or a filmic reconstruction? Kosovar diaspora filmmakers, alongside voices from other displaced contexts, explore what distance reveals, what it distorts, and how it changes a filmmaker's responsibility.
Who Helps a Short Film Travel?
A short film rarely travels on the strength of the film alone. It also needs a team that can communicate its vision, partners who understand what the project needs, and networks that can connect it to the right opportunities. This DokuTalk looks at the practical decisions behind a film’s journey. How should directors and producers communicate? When does a co-production bring real value? What do festivals, markets and sales agents look for, and how can filmmakers build relationships that continue beyond the first pitch?
Images of Resistance: When Documentation Becomes Activism
Images recorded during moments of resistance can do more than document what happened. They can carry a local struggle across borders, preserve memories that those in power may prefer forgotten, and turn witnessing into a form of participation.
