Docville was founded in 2005 as a thematical series within the arthouse movie theatre Cinema ZED.

In the next edition the festival added competitive sections and became independent of the movie theatre.

Docville takes place each year in different locations within the city of Leuven.

In June 2018 the festival announced it is one of 28 film festivals in the world whose jury award-winning film will be placed on the longlist of the documentary feature category for the Academy Awards The 16th edition was postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis (original dates: March 25 to April 2, 2020) to September 25 - October 3, 2020.

In 2023 a new section was added to the festival, dedicated to science related documentaries and activities: ScienceVille.