© Dovile Sermokas / Doxumentale
Dx'Hub
New Platforms, new Audiences
31 May, 2026, 11.30 AM @ Festival Centre: Lounge 19
Event language: English
Documentary storytelling is no longer confined to the cinema.
Podcasts, social media, and interactive or non-linear formats are reshaping not only how stories are told, but also how they are experienced – and by whom. This session explores the shift toward audience-centered documentary storytelling and asks how new platforms can create more immediate, participatory, and accessible ways of engaging with documentary content. At its core is the question of what it means to reach audiences where they already are. How do new distribution channels reshape attention, intimacy, and impact? And how can creators navigate these evolving spaces in order to connect with broader and more diverse communities? The session invites participants to think of new documentary pathways as aesthetic, strategic, and audience-specific forms of practice.
Program Info
New Platforms, new Audiences
Guests
Dina Elsayed
Dina Elsayed is a Berlin-based journalist and podcast producer. She began her career reporting on the 2011 uprisings in her native Egypt. Her work on social and cultural issues has appeared in outlets including NPR, the Financial Times, and KCRW Berlin. Most recently she was a Nonfiction Producer at Audible, developing narrative audio formats with journalists and creators. She also leads audio storytelling workshops in Germany and internationally.
Manuel Freundt
For over a decade, Manuel Freundt was an Executive Producer at VICE Media, where he developed and produced documentary and social media content for broadcasters such as ARD Kultur, ZDFneo, SWR, BR, Spiegel TV Wissen, and funk (ARD & ZDF). His funk format 100percentme was nominated for the Grimme Award. Today, he works as a freelance creative producer and filmmaker, developing holistic distribution strategies for digital content.
Anna Desponds
THE CATALYSTS are a boutique consultancy supporting innovative players across digital tech, media, film, music, design, and the arts. Anna is passionate about connecting ideas and people. She gained broad insight into the creative industries by producing a major documentary festival, creating museum content, working in cultural marketing, and as a film sales agent. Since joining THE CATALYSTS in 2018, she focuses on research, event curation, and business development.
Moderation
Anna Ramskogler-Witt
Anna Ramskogler-Witt began her career in the film industry in 2006 at Vienna's Pool Film Distribution, where she set up the education programme. Since the beginning of her career, she has been convinced that documentaries can achieve a longer life and a larger audience through an impact approach. From 2019 - 2023 she served as Artistic Director of the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin. Together with Vivian Schröder, she founded The Good Media Network in 2024 and serves as the Artistic Director.
Breakout Session 1: Podcast & Audio
Building on the panel, this breakout by Dina Elsayed explores how documentary stories work in audio: how to create place, tension and intimacy when listeners only have sound to guide them. We’ll look at shaping moments from interviews, atmosphere and lived detail, and how to lead listeners through shifts in emotion or perspective. In a small-group setting, we’ll use short listening examples and simple hands-on exercises to explore what makes an audio story feel alive.
Breakout Session 2: Immersive Media
This breakout by Anna Desponds explores the shift from traditional documentary ecosystems toward hybrid, cross-platform storytelling. It looks at how film increasingly connects with immersive media and digital culture, opening up new ways of reaching and engaging audiences. The session draws on Anna’s experience working across film, interactive formats, and participatory projects, with a focus on how participation, interactivity, and community-building can shape contemporary documentary practice. Building on case studies such as ichbinsophiescholl, this breakout with Manuel Freundt explores how documentary storytelling is reshaped in the context of social media, digital platforms, and immersive formats.
Breakout Session 3: Social Media
The session looks at the shift from traditional documentary ecosystems toward more hybrid, cross-platform approaches, and how this opens up new ways of structuring narratives and reaching audiences. At the centre are questions of how stories are designed for platform-native environments, how participation and interaction can become part of the storytelling process, and how communities form around documentary content in digital spaces.
Festival Centre: Lounge 19
Eichhornstraße 3
10785 Berlin
10785 Berlin
