2025 CPH:DOX Hands Out Awards To ‘Always,’ ‘2000 Meters To Andriivka’

CPH:DOX has topped winners on the newest version of the famend nonfiction movie competition in Copenhagen.

The DOX:Award, the competition’s high prize, went to Always, the directorial debut of Deming Chen. The movie tells the story of a younger poet, 8-year-old Youbin, who lives “deep in the lush mountains of Hunan province” in southern China.

“There’s a huge difference between nothing and small things. But life is in fact made up of many, often unnoticed, small things. We need the sensibilities of artists to show us the greatness of the little things,” famous the DOX:Award jury comprised of Rikke Tambo Andersen, Max Kestner, Nicolas Rapold, Adele Tulli and Raul Niño Zambrano. “This exquisitely shot chronicle of a rural farming family is alive with compassion and poetry.”

The DOX:Award, sponsored by Politiken and Politiken-Fonden, comes with a €10,000 prize.

The jury awarded a Special Mention to Flophouse America, a documentary revolving round one other a boy sensible past his years. Monica Strømdahl makes her directorial debut with the movie about 12-year-old Mikal and his dad and mom, who battle with alcoholism whereas residing within the cramped quarters of a bare-bones resort in Florida.

In a doable preview of subsequent yr’s Oscar race, Mstyslav Chernov’s 2000 Meters to Andriivka gained the F:ACT Award, whereas a Special Mention in that aggressive class went to Geeta Gandbhir’s The Perfect Neighbor. Both movies held their world premieres in January on the Sundance Film Festival.

2000 Meters to Andriivka, Chernov’s comply with as much as the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, plunges viewers into warfare as Ukrainian troops advance alongside a slender strip of land, making an attempt to recapture a village seized by Russian invaders.

“Ultimately we give the F:ACT award to 2000 Meters to Andriivka not just because it’s a conflict on our doorstep, but because it’s a masterpiece in filmmaking: a haunting, multi layered portrayal of war comparable to All Quiet on the Western Front. But this is not the First World War, it’s today,” wrote the jury, comprised of Alexis Bloom, Mikala Krogh and Steffi Niederzoll. “The meaninglessness of war, and also its unsettling poetry are all on full display here. An artist in amongst bloodshed brings the reality home, and make an anti war film that forces us to reflect on the dignity of each human life lost.”

The F:ACT Award, supported by International Media Support and the Danish Union of Journalists, honors “films blending documentary and investigative journalism” and comes with a €5,000 prize. [Director Mstyslav Chernov will appear on the next edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, releasing on Tuesday].

The jury awarded a Special Mention to The Perfect Neighbor, a movie that makes use of police bodycam and dashcam video to doc a stunning 2023 case in Florida the place a white girl shot to loss of life her Black neighbor. Calling the movie “extremely powerful on a physical level,” jurors mentioned, “The choice to stay on the bodycam footage was brave, and it paid off. This shows enormous filmmaking skill. This is a devastating film about gun violence, but it’s also a film about families, about every day life, and the connections between us. The triangle between the perpetrator, the police and the neighbors is woven together with great sensitivity. In its own way, The Perfect Neighbor is a restrained film, and that’s what proves so shattering.”

The competition’s HUMAN:RIGHTS Award, now in its second yr of existence, went to 9-Month Contract, directed by Ketevan Vashagashvili. In early March, Deadline premiered the trailer for the movie, “an intimate and raw portrait” of the emotional and bodily toll of unregulated surrogacy work within the republic of Georgia.

The jury, comprised of Mohamed Saïd Ouma, Tomáš Poštulka and Birgitte Stærmose, mentioned 9-Month Contract “portrays the relationship between a mother and her daughter with a radical intimacy and an outstanding tenderness. Through its visual poetry the film balances delicately between the harshness of their situation and the humanity of Zhana and her intense love for her daughter.”

The HUMAN:RIGHTS Award, sponsored by the Danish Institute for Human Rights, comes with a prize of €5,000.

Jurors awarded a Special Mention to The Encampments, a really well timed movie directed by Michael T. Workman and Kei Pritsker that examines the pro-Palestinian scholar activists who occupied Columbia University final yr to protest Israel’s decimation of Gaza following the October 7 Hamas terror assault on Israel.

The jury wrote, “The Special Mention goes to a hopeful and inspiring film that immerses you in the activism of students in times of conflict and oppression.”

These are the extra awards introduced Friday at CPH:DOX:

NORDIC:DOX AWARD

Winner: WALLS – AKINNI INUK by Nina Paninnguaq Skydsbjerg & Sofie Rørdam

GL/ 2025 / World Premiere

Special Mention: THE NICEST MEN ON EARTH by Josefine Exner & Sebastian Gerdes

DK / 2025 / World Premiere

The NORDIC:DOX Award (€5,000) honors standout documentaries from the Nordic area.

The jury consisted of Butheina Kazim, Dario Oliveira, and Roja Pakari.

Jury assertion: “Out of the periphery, armed with radical dignity within the face of a chronic and harsh injustice, we bore witness to a pure circulate of vulnerability, entrance and middle, refusing to be forged apart. In the heartbroken cadence of its native tongue, we discovered an alignment of parts, an intuitive and steadfast story of a female drive of nature.

“Fresh like a gust of the Nordic wind, the therapeutic powers of the movie left us respiration hope and delicate triumph. A reminder of placing cameras within the rightful arms, demonstrating the distinction between observational documentary and representational storytelling.

“For sending us off all the wiser, we present the award for Best Nordic Documentary to WALLS (Akinni Inuk) by Nina Paninnguaq Skydsbjerg & Sofie Rørdam from Greenland.”

“Because some of the hardest questions can sometimes be answered with the simplest of ideas and a whole lotta style, an honorable mention goes to THE NICEST MEN ON EARTH by Josefine Exner & Sebastian Gerdes.”

NEXT:WAVE AWARD

Winner: ABODE OF DAWN by Kristina Shtubert

DE / 2024 / International Premiere

Special Mention: WHO WITNESSED THE TEMPLES FALL by Lucía Selva

SP / 2025 / World Premiere

The NEXT:WAVE Award (€5,000) highlights new and rising filmmakers.

The jury consisted of Sissel Morell Dargis, Sona Karapoghosyan, and María Palacios Cruz.

Jury assertion: ‘Set in a northern forest, the movie follows a neighborhood which emerged as a substitute for a misplaced previous which maybe by no means existed.

“For its immense respect and long-term dedication, nuanced method to existential questions and talent to embrace an atmosphere with so many contradictions, The Next:Wave award goes to Adobe of Dawn.

“We additionally wish to award a particular point out to a movie imbued with magic and thriller whose visible language and soundscapes impressed us. A movie that blurs previous and current to handle points round urbanization, gentrification and the social panorama and troubled historical past of Spain. The movie with probably the most stunning title and title design, we award a particular point out to Who Witnessed the Temples Fall.

NEW:VISION

Winner: RAMALLAH, PALESTINE, DECEMBER 2018 by Juliette Le Monniyer

BE / 2025 / World Premiere

Special point out: SCRAP by Noémie Lobry

FR / 2025 / World Premiere

The NEW:VISION Award (€5,000) celebrates artwork movies and boundary-pushing experiments.

The jury consisted of Mason Leaver-Yap, Jeppe Lange, and Marina Kožul.

Jury assertion: Winner: RAMALLAH, PALESTINE, DECEMBER 2018 “Penetrating a sunny pastoral panorama in single-take, Juliette Le Monnyer’s video takes us by means of an unfolding but unspecified second of battle. The shakey digicam pans as if scaling a ziggurat from afar. Dated from 2018, it is a doc of a just-past that refuses to provide a complete overview and but, in its partial nature, reveals a lot in regards to the second we discover ourselves in — the timing of this movie’s launch: March 2025.

“Wavering hesitantly between the everyday and the unknowable, this is a short film delivered with uncompromising conceptual rigor. It demands questions about what we – as viewers, as filmmakers – are witnessing. What we choose to focus on and when – what do we overlook, what do we withhold, when do we stop watching.”

Special point out: SCRAP

“Through an inventive use of associations the film weaves together childhood memories, eerie scenes from computer games, and glimpses of a post-apocalyptic future. Salvaging and cannibalizing components of the coming of age drama and the road movie genre, we’ve been taken to look upon it with a different eye.”

INTER:ACTIVE AWARD

Winner: ‘CONSTANTINOPOLIAD’ by Sister Sylvester & Nadah El Shazly

UK / Installation / 2025 / International Premiere

Special Mention: THE GARDEN SAYS… by Uri Kranot, Michelle Kranot, Sara Topsøe

Jensen, Sarah John & Marieke Breyne

DK / XR Perfomance-Installation / 2025 / World Premiere

The award winner will obtain a successful package deal together with two complimentary trade accreditations for Sunny Side of the Doc, two full entry accreditations for the Industry Days of New Images Festival, 6 hours of authorized session on European IP regulation and a money prize of €1000.

The jury consisted of Irene Campolmi, David Adler, and Carl Emil Carlsen.

Jury assertion: “In a world of hyper-immersive applied sciences, the place interactivity typically calls for motion, headsets, or VR goggles, Costantinopoliad invitations us to do one thing much more radical: to sit down nonetheless and pay attention.

“Costantinopoliad is not only a piece of storytelling; it’s an invite to discovery. It intertwines narrative with motion, making us really feel as if we’re the primary to come across this archive, the primary to unearth Cavafy’s story, to breathe life into his phrases. The work radiates a uncommon curiosity and playfulness, slipping between the boundaries of literature, efficiency, and archaeology.

“Yet, simply as we settle into this deeply private expertise, an uncanny sensation creeps in. As we flip the pages, contact the stones, and immerse ourselves within the poet’s world, we change into the protagonist, performers in an unfolding documentary. Our actions, our gestures, change into a part of a cinematic language, synchronized with the voice-over that narrates a previous we are actually embodying.

“It is with great pleasure that we announce Costantinopoliad by Sister Sylvester & Nadah El Shazly as the recipient of this year’s INTER:ACTIVE exhibition award. This work is not just anartwork—it is an experience, a portal, a living archive.”

Special Mention: “We are delighted to increase an Honorable Mention to The Garden Says… by Uri and Michelle Kranot, Sara Topsøe Jensen, Sarah John & Marieke Breynefor their stunning, thought-provoking, and deeply reflective set up.

“Centered on the aesthetic experience of a virtual garden and the serendipity of chance encounters, this work dares to create a space where interactions unfold organically—and it does so with remarkable success. The Garden Says… is not just an environment but an invitation—one that encourages return, exploration, and the continuous possibility of new meetings. Thank you for offering us a heartfelt and personal experience, one that reminds us of the power of connection and shared presence.”