Switzerland’s Visions du Reel documentary film festival has selected the winners for its 57th edition, with Xisi Sofia Ye Chen’s From Dawn To Dawn taking the top prize.
Chen’s debut feature, a Spain-France co-production, won the 20,000 CHF ($25,486) Grand Jury Prize in the International Feature Film Competition. It depicts Chen’s brother A Wen, now a family man in Barcelona, who was involved in the Chinese criminal community in Spain in his youth.
Scroll down for the full list of festival, industry winners
The jury for the International Feature Film Competition consisted of Marrakech Film Festival artistic director Remi Bonhomme, and filmmakers Lina Soualem and Brett Story, and noted “a moving, intimate and complex portrait of the impacts of exile and the struggle to reclaim one’s life.”
The jury also awarded a Special Jury Award to Marlene Edoyan for her second feature film A Fire There; and a Special Mention to Burkinabe filmmaker Boubacar Sangare for Djeliya, mémoire du Mandé.
The 10,000 CHF ($12,743) Jury Prize in the Burning Lights Competition went to Hassen Ferhani for French-Algerian co-production Alea Jacarandas. The jury of filmmaker Ali Asgari, editor Liyo Gong and programmer and critic Antoine Thirion called it “a film that, on the surface, explores transmission, but beneath opens onto deeper currents. It teaches us how to look—toward beauty, and toward the dream of beauty hovering over the violence of history and the distances between beings.”
Lauren Dallenbach won the 15,000 CHF ($19,114) Jury Prize in the National Competition for Swiss films, with debut feature Nicole Nicole, about a woman and her mother living in a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva who are trapped in co-dependency.
Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak’s Birds Of War, filmed over 13 years and using the personal archives of a Lebanese journalist and Syrian cameraman, won the Audience Award.
“I am particularly delighted to see that this year’s list of winners embodies what makes Visions du Réel so unique: its ability to present films that break down the barriers of conventional documentary cinema, offering audiences the chance to shift their perspective, whether by discovering new voices or exploring specific realities, contexts of joy and terror, darkness and beauty, confinement and freedom,” said Visions du Reel artistic director Emilie Bujes, in her last edition in the role before she takes over as director of Geneva Film Festival later this year. “This edition has demonstrated that the festival has retained a loyal audience over many years, whilst broadening its reach, particularly among younger generations.”
Earlier this week the festival selected the winners for its VdR-Industry professional strand, with Daniel Mann’s French production Uganda taking the top Eurimages Co-production Development Award with €20,000 ($23,428) cash prize. The project tells the story of a 1904 expedition, when a European team was sent to the African nation to consider its suitability as a Jewish settlement.
France-Haiti co-production Job 1:21, about a group of female former prisoners in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince staging a play to expose the flaws in the country’s justice system, took the 10,000 CHF ($12,743) Visions Sud Est Award.
The industry strand presented over €80,000 in total awards, to 12 projects.
This year’s festival closes on Sunday, April 26 with screenings of the festival’s award-winning films, and with an online programme available until May 4.
Visions du Reel 2026 festival, industry winners
Festival winners
International Feature Film Competition
Grand Jury Award – From Dawn To Dawn, dir. Xisi Sofia Ye Chen
Special Jury Award – A Fire There, dir. Marlene Edoyan
Special mention – Djeliya, mémoire du Mandé, dir. Boubacar Sangare
Burning Lights Competition
Jury Prize – Alea Jacarandas, dir. Hassen Ferhani
Special Jury Award – Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava, dir. Nong Nhat Quang
Special mentions – The Case Against Space, dir. Graeme Arnfield; Illusion of Quiet Night, dir. Olga Chernyk
National Competition
Jury Prize – Nicole Nicole, dir. Lauren Dallenbach
Special Jury Award – What Comes From Sitting In Silence, dir. Sophie Schrago
Special mention – Der Runde Tisch, dirs. Juliette Menthonnex, Benjamin Bucher
Audience Award in Wide Angle Competition – Birds Of War, dirs. Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak
Fipresci Award – Saudades Eternas, dir. Emma Bofanccuso
Prix Interreligieux – Dentro, dir. Elsa Amiel
Perception Change Award – Good Valley Stories, dir. Jose Luis Guerin
Industry Awards
Eurimages Co-production Development Award – Uganda, dir. Daniel Mann
Visions Sud Est Award – Job 1:21, dir. Samuel Suffren
RTS Award – Trade, dir. Todd Chandler
Lightdox Award – Trade, dir. Todd Chandler
The Party Film Sales Award – My Skin and I, dirs. Milton Guillen, Fiona Guy Hall
IDA Documentary Culture Award – Hello?!, dir. Sofie Benoot
Tenk Post-production Award – Stuttering Fluidity – How My Father Became a Sea Creature, dir. Stefan Pavlovic
Mase Studios & Color Grade Award – My Skin and I, dirs. Milton Guillen, Fiona Guy Hall
Raggioverde Subtitling Award – La Linda, dir. Francina Carbonell
Cannes Docs Award - Stuttering Fluidity – How My Father Became a Sea Creature, dir. Stefan Pavlovic
No Nation Films Fellowship Award – The People Outside, dir. Jewel Maranan
DOK Leipzig Award – Liberal Arts, dir. Pacho Velez
AIDC Award – Somewhere Over The Rainbow, dir. Koval Bhatia
DAE Encouragement Award - Somewhere Over The Rainbow, dir. Koval Bhatia
No comments yet