Best Award Winners 2026
| Award | Film | Country | Director | Logline | Cover |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Documentary | Lifeline: The War on UNRWA | Palestine | Charles McBryde | Lifeline is an investigation into the inner workings of UNRWA, the main UN agency responsible for 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, as they navigate existential challenges brought about by funding cuts and politically motivated attacks. |  |
| Best Environmental Film | The Fire In Our Hearts | Canada | Josias Tschanz | The Fire in Our Hearts is an intimate feature documentary exploring Indigenous history, traditional fire knowledge, and the resilience of communities on the frontlines of climate change. As wildfires intensify across northern British Columbia, the film follows the Cheslatta Carrier Nation and Southside residents as they defend their land, drawing on local leadership, cultural knowledge, and lived experience. |  |
| Best Short Documentary | The Strength of Silence | Ethiopia | Samuel Vela | The documentary follows a 17-year-old girl whose life was fractured by war. Kidnapped, subjected to sexual violence, and left to raise a child born from trauma, she faces rejection from her family and community. In Ethiopia’s Tigray region, her survival depends not only on the bread she bakes, but also on an ancestral ritual – the coffee ceremony – where women like her transform silence into an act of resistance, solidarity, and sisterhood. |  |
| Best Short Drama | NŪR | Congo | Ryan Youngblood | This short drama follows Nūr, a young Congolese man who is lured into joining the Islamic State by promises of work and money, only to find himself trapped in a brutal jungle camp and forced to fight for survival. As a mysterious message offers him a possible way home, Nūr must risk everything to escape and reclaim his identity. |  |
| Best Experimental Film | Dedomestication | Switzerland | Rafa Bqueer, Daniel Hellmann, Vitor Souza Lima | A Swiss cow and an Amazonian panther meet for a drag queen adventure, full of questions about colonialism, climate change, and LGBTQIA+ activism. Soya the Cow and Uhura Bqueer are two glamorous, dystopian beasts, ready to devour the normative thoughts of an apocalyptic society. |  |
| Best Animation Film | All we have | Canada | Mahmoud Ghalwa, Amer Hlehel | All We Have follows Dalya and Salem, whose love and dreams of starting a family are shattered when Salem is imprisoned indefinitely under military occupation. Based on true events, the film explores how love survives separation and how the trauma of imprisonment continues to shape a family long after reunion. |  |
Social Impact Awards 2026
| Film Title | Country | Directors |
|---|---|---|
| Being Olimpia | Mexico | Indira Cato |
| Born That Way | Ireland | Éamon Little |
| Breaking the Taboos – Fighting for Peace Against Silence | Canada | Mehmet Oner |
| BreakPoint: The Untold Story of the Constitution Express | United States | Leslie Korn, Max Montalban |
| China’s Stealth Invasion | United States | Tobias Elvhage |
| Do Better | Netherlands | Dikla Zeidler |
| Eitai – Community Togetherness | United Kingdom | sally bashford-squires |
| Etched in Memory | Qatar | Christina Maria Paschyn |
| Feel It From My Words | Australia | John RG Lacey |
| Fowl Play | Netherlands | Arieke van Liere |
| Genocide in the Wildflower State | Australia | Franko Rijavec |
| Guided by Horses | Australia | Sean O’Reilly |
| Hunger Strike for Life – A Death-Defying Intervention | Germany | Maico Riegelmann |
| ICED out of America | United States | Michael Nigro |
| In Exile | United States | Ralph Vituccio, Reem Alghazzi |
| Journacide: The War on Truth | Ireland | Sean A Murray |
| Kim: The long way home | United Kingdom | Cosima Barzini, Kimberly Hoang |
| Light | Spain | Aner Etxebarria |
| Missing in the Amazon: The Search for Dom and Bruno | United Kingdom | James Rogan |
| More Punk Than Punk | United Kingdom | Azeem Rajulawalla |
| Mum | United Kingdom | Jake Mavity |
| My Grandmother is a Skydiver | Germany | Polina Piddubna |
| Not Ours To Carry | United Kingdom | Veronica Blecker |
| Our Journey with lobular breast cancer | United Kingdom | Tristan Loraine |
| Paperwork | Sweden | Francis Rogers |
| Shades of Survival | United Kingdom | David Ayeni |
| Terradread | Germany | Beatrice Aliné |
| The Comfort Dogs of Uganda | Australia | Richard Wainwright |
| The Milk of Life | United States | Joseph So |
| The Row | United States | Adam Trunell |
| Traumality | United Kingdom | Antonio Mazzone |
| We Push – For a world without barriers | Switzerland | Sandra Bühler |
| Where are we going | Austria | Katrin Seifried, Claudia Lorenz |
Official Selections & Honorary Award for Efforts in Social Filmmaking 2026
| Film Title | Country | Directors |
|---|---|---|
| 2099: Power in us | Australia | Michael Aw |
| A Few Nagging Questions | United Kingdom | Paul Sapin |
| Accidental Truth Next – Beyond UFO Disclosure | United States | Ron James |
| Actually, I didn’t want to stay long | Germany | Andreas Grützner |
| An Inconvenient Study | United States | Kris Armstrong |
| Api Penyucian (The Purgatory) | France | Pierre Tremerel |
| Architecture Workers: Organizing for Change | United States | Valérie Lechêne |
| Ayeshah’s Podcast: The Forgotten Voices of The Gambia | Gambia | Nicolas Braguinsky Cascini, Juan Pablo Aris Escarcena |
| Aylan | Slovenia | Berhan Mete Arkin |
| Bands of hysterics | Belgium | Kita Bauchet |
| Barren lands – Terre aride | Italy | Hervé Barmasse |
| Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica’s Coastline | Jamaica | Emiel Martens, Elsie Vermeer |
| Chasing Hope | Germany | Sandra Kaudelka |
| Chocolates and Roses: Breaking the silence about domestic violence in the Philippines | Australia | Erminia Colucci |
| Cruelty for Clicks | United States | Kirk Murray |
| Crunch Point: Hunger and Hardship in Food Bank Britain | United Kingdom | William Taylor |
| Disconnected: Voices from the Call Center | United States | Peter I Tompkins |
| Disdain | Mexico | Gabo Ramos |
| Field hospital. A hidden City in the Heart of Barcelona | Spain | Jordi Roigé Solé |
| Fighting the Fire | United Kingdom | Canton Yip, Jeanne Pierron |
| First Nations: Finding the Chickasaw | United Kingdom | Sarah Flower |
| For Every Breath | India | Priyanka Mukherjee |
| Hollywood Bomb: The ‘Most Important’ Movie Never Made and Nuclear Fallout Today | United States | Greg Mitchell |
| Isabel | United States | Louis Lam |
| It’s about me | Cyprus | Ran Levy Yamamori |
| Kan Ya Ma Kan: The Stories We Carry | Czechia | Tereza Palicka |
| Magical Bridge: Kind By Design | United States | Annette M. King |
| Migration Diaries: Stories Written in Waiting | Netherlands | mahmoud Elenani |
| Montessori: Education for Peace | Spain | Ángel Galmés Sureda |
| My Lizochek. | Georgia | Lyudmila Sadovnikova |
| Nation or Colony, following the trail of gold | Argentina | Juan Pablo Lepore |
| Niccioleta, stories above and below the earth. | Italy | Irene Paoletti |
| Red Girl Rising | Canada | Kim Stadfeld, Faith Howe |
| Reverence: Reclaiming the Forgotten | United States | John Mills |
| Right Here, Right Now: The Science of Climate Justice | United Kingdom | Rob Key |
| Santa’s not Mum and Dad | Spain | Alberto Leal |
| She Dared to Dream: Ayanna Pressley | United States | Abby Ginzberg |
| Split | United Kingdom | Charlotte Workman |
| Taranto Calling | Italy | Rosy Battaglia |
| The Beauty Trap | United Kingdom | Camille Laurent |
| The Couch | India | Kartik Dengle |
| The Days Until Tomorrow | Brazil | Fabiana Leite |
| The Exile from Bessarabia | Romania | Sergiu Ene, Natalia Ghilascu |
| The Loud Silence | Palestine | Juman Ali Quneis |
| The Peaceful Weapon | Latvia | Dima Bass |
| The Protocol Of Peace (b-30) | United States | Thomas Pickarski |
| The Quest of Scoop and Monk | United Kingdom | Michael Thomas Lane |
| The Seeds of Peace | United States | David-Paul B. Hedberg |
| The Thing | United States | gabe imlay |
| This is your Captain speaking | United Kingdom | Tristan Loraine, Sandra Skibsted |
| Treaure | Turkiye | Metîn EWR |
| Unarmed | United Kingdom | Ukraine |
| Untethered | United States | T.C. C. Johnstone |
| Via Dolorosa: The Path of Sorrows | Greece | Amira Khalil Hanania |
| Voice of the land | Argentina | Ana Fraile, Lucas Scavino |
| Was I there, or was I there? | United Kingdom | Simon Reay |
| We Are Animals | United States | Kirk Murray, Nicholas Tana |
| Weaving Hope | India | Rujuta Doshi |
