Competition

Grand Jury Documentary

For the fifth time, we will present the Grand Jury Documentary Award in 2025. Eight documentaries will be selected from the festival’s full film programme. These are films where cinematography and content go hand in hand. An international jury will declare the winner of €5,000.

The Grand Jury Documentary Award is made possible by HUMAN.

Nominations

Benjamin Netanyahu takes a call inside a car

The Bibi Files

Using leaked, never-before-seen interrogation footage, The Bibi Files provides an unflinching look into Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle and a private world of alleged bribery and fraud. His corruption is more than a scandal—it is a gateway for the far-right to consolidate power. As Netanyahu embraces their extremism ...

Jens Stoltenberg in talks with Volodymyr Zelensky

Facing War

A political documentary with a unique inside look at NATO’s leadership during Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. As Western unity wavers, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg extends his tenure for one final year, vowing to support President Zelensky “for as long as it takes.” But with NATO decisions requiring unanimity, h...

Animation of a man holding a video camera and raising his fist

Flavors of Iraq

French-Iraqi Feurat Alani grew up in Paris but spent his summers in his family's native Iraq, a country scarred by Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. After becoming a journalist, he returns to Iraq during the American occupation and is confronted with the silent memories of war. Today, at the ceremony paying tribute to his...

Flophouse America

12-year-old Mikal was born and raised in a hotel room he shares with his parents, who struggle with substance abuse. Driven by love and a desire for a better life, Mikal’s greatest wish is for his mother to stop drinking. But what does it truly take for someone to change? Due to the severe housing crisis in the U.S., ...

Grey Zone

Slovakian filmmaker and photographer Daniela Meressa Rusnoková’s twins were born in ‘the grey zone’, as the doctor called it. In this documentary, she transmutes the unspokenly common and often traumatic reality of premature birth into a deeply poetic work of art. ‘I was expecting a 40-week pregnancy just like any othe...

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment sites for the war. Facing the ethical dilemma of working in a system defined by propaganda and violence, a brave teacher goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his school. Pav...

My Dear Théo

A moving and personal documentary by filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, who made a profound choice in 2022: while her partner and their four-year-old son left for France, she joined the Ukrainian army. During four months at the front, she wrote letters to her son Theo and recorded her experiences in a cinematic diary.  In My D...

Night is Not Eternal

A personal exploration of political activism through the eyes of Chinese-American filmmaker Nanfu Wang. Over seven years, Nanfu followed activist Rosa María Payá in her fight for a democratic Cuba. Interwoven with Payá’s narrative are Nanfu’s reflections on her Chinese upbringing and observations of eroding democracy i...

Portrait of Raki Ap, spokesperson for the Free West Papua Campaign

The Promise

A forgotten struggle, a lost future. In the 1960s, it seemed that West Papua was on the path to independence. But international interests, geopolitical power struggles, and economic motives dictated otherwise. Using uniquely restored 35mm archival footage, The Promise brings this history back to life, revealing how an ...

Jury

Bob Moore

Brian Hill

Justine Nagan