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Founded in 2017 as a meeting point for bold and free documentary voices, DokuBaku — the first independent and leading International Documentary Film Festival in the region — has grown into a significant platform for contemporary non-fiction cinema. Rooted in artistic freedom, critical thinking, and the search for new documentary forms, the festival creates an open and dialogical space for filmmakers, researchers, and audiences who use cinema to question reality, power, memory, and the future.
Taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from OCTOBER 5–11, 2026, DOKUBAKU presents its 10th Anniversary edition under the theme STELLAR CIVILIZATION. This special edition invites filmmakers to rethink humanity’s place in the universe — not as a dominant, self-centered force, but as a conscious, responsible, and interconnected particle within a vast cosmic system.
By transcending borders, notions of ownership, and linear ideas of “progress” and “time,” the theme proposes civilization as an ethical, spiritual, and relational process. Here, civilization is grounded in responsibility, interdependence, care, and cosmic humility.
Stellar Civilization questions not only how humans coexist with one another, but also how they live alongside the planet, other life forms, and the unknown.
DokuBaku seeks documentary works that look both upward and inward — films that explore planetary consciousness, science and space, ecological memory, invisible histories, ancestral knowledge, and speculative futures. In this context, cinema becomes both a telescope and a mirror: a tool for observing the vastness of the universe while enabling deep human self-reflection. Through these stories, the festival calls not for conquest, but for imagining and shaping a civilization that belongs to the cosmos through awareness, responsibility, and care.
Celebrating its 10th edition, DOKUBAKU invites documentaries that explore humanity, society, technology, memory, and the evolving idea of civilization—on Earth and beyond. We welcome bold, poetic, and visionary non-fiction works that question who we are and where we are heading.
Submission Dates & Deadlines
February 13, 2026 — Opening Date
April 13, 2026 — Earlybird Deadline
May 13, 2026 — Regular Deadline
June 13, 2026 — Late Deadline
Submit your film via FilmFreeway:
https://filmfreeway.com/DBIDFF
As Azerbaijan’s first independent documentary film festival, DokuBaku IDFF features dozens of film screenings, as well as masterclasses and workshops led by international film professionals. The festival’s core mission is to foster the development of documentary filmmaking in Azerbaijan as a means of expression and critical thought, support local filmmakers working in the genre, connect the country’s film scene with the international film community, discover new voices, and contribute to the sustainable growth of Azerbaijan’s film industry.
