StLouis’ Docs

StLouis’ DOCS is an international documentary film festival which dates back to 2010, when the network of documentary filmmakers and associations in Africa called AfricaDoc organised a co-production event named ‘Tenk’. This was itself triggered by a first writing residency that took place in Gorée Island, in Dakar, followed by several meetings in 2003, which led to the creation of Africadoc. A series of people interested in documentary film production started to organise among themselves. In 2006, the co-production meeting was organised in Saint-Louis, leading to the establishment of a programme of film screenings followed by discussions in 2010.

The goal of ‘Tenk’ was to contribution to the production and dissemination of documentary films by African filmmakers or shot in Africa through training at the Université Gaston Berger, in Saint-Louis, and creative writing residences, and to include film screenings to showcase the produced films to local audiences. The project changed over time, being re-branded as the Festival International du Film Documentaire de Saint-Louis, also known as Saint-Louis DOCS’, since 2014.

Over the years, StLouis’ DOCS has become a leading international film festival and the only one solely devoted to the exhibition of documentary films. Whilst in 2018, the festival was celebrating its fifth edition, in 2019, the organisers decided to acknowledge more explicitly the origins of the festival back in 2010, renumbering the editions, and making 2019 the tenth edition of the festival. In 2023, StLouis’ DOCS thus celebrated its 14^th edition.

StLouis’ DOCS is an illustrative example of the audience-centred curatorial and managerial approaches in Senegal. The programme is offered entirely for free across multiple locations in the city of Saint-Louis. This is of particular significance in a place where, after the disappearance and abandonment of the cinema Vox, there are currently (by 2023) no cinema venues, which contrasts with the situation in Dakar, the capital, where there has been a re-appearance of cinemas since 2017.

It is a competitive festival co-produced by Suñuy Films (Senegal) and Krysalide Diffusion (France). Once the festival has been celebrated in Senegal, a number of films are also curated in a sister festival in Marseilles. The festival further hosts tributes to filmmakers at different points in their career and has a strong focus on discussion. Every year it attracts thousands of people across different areas of Saint-Louis.