2021 Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival, China (GZDOC), has received a total of 3670 submissions from 125 countries and regions all over the world, with both the numbers of domestic and international entries reaching a new high.

Among the submissions, 17.7% are from China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) and 82.3% are from countries and regions overseas. The entries from Asian countries rank first in the seven continents.

The documentaries submitted for the Golden Kapok Award Competition this year have been greatly acclaimed by the Selection Committee. Each of the entries has its own concerns, and from the issues discussed to the techniques employed, a rich variety of creative approaches are used, making this an intense competition. The comments from the 92 members of the Pre-selection Committee demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of each documentary, as well as its social and artistic value.

We advocate the idea that the documentary should show humanistic care and promote universal human emotions that are sincere, positive and beautiful without cultural and spatiotemporal limitations. With a 95% elimination rate, 191 films have shown outstanding performance in the pre-selection and entered the second-round selection of the Golden Kapok Award Competition.

The longlist of the documentaries entering the second-round selection of GZDOC 2021 (International Part) are announced as follows.