CPH:DOX 2026 Industry Awards Winners Include Gaza Project
CPH:DOX industry awards winners 2026
Courtesy of Michael Kaack
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The winners of the industry awards of the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX, were unveiled in the Danish capital on Thursday evening, and they include names whose past films have made a splash.
Among them are director Asmae El Moudir, who made waves and won awards with her 2023 feature The Mother of All Lies, which followed her search for truth in her family background via a combination of personal and national history, as well as director Kathryn Ferguson, known for the likes of Sinéad O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares and BAFTA-nominated short film Nostalgie.
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In addition to the winners of the CPH:INDUSTRY Awards, three awards for immersive non-fiction were handed out.
Check out all the winners below.
Eurimages New Lab Outreach Award
The award worth €30,000 ($34,755) went to Haut et Court Doc for the CPH:ROUGHCUT project Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me by director El Moudir and producer Emma Lepers. The jury cited “the audacity to shine a light on the bright colors of darkness and reveal a hidden story through a daring, innovative and singular artistic vision.
The film focuses on a community of young adults with xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare condition that makes sunlight fatal, traveling to Norway to live under the polar night.
Eurimages New Lab Innovation Award
The award worth €20,000 ($23,170) went to Anna Lena Films for the CPH:FORUM project Cosmofonia by director Véréna Paravel and producer Florence Cohen. Said the jury: “We are pleased to recognize a project that feels innovative in the truest sense, and that expands the possibilities of presentation beyond the black box. For a project that opens new worlds of previously unheard sounds and unseen images, and that pushes the art of cinema beyond the realm of human perception.
The “immersive, sensory film” by French anthropologist, filmmaker, and artist approaches documentary filmmaking about animals and plants in a new way, filmed from their perspective or that of their immediate surroundings. Cosmofonia explores the inaudible sounds and voices, including infrasonic vibrations, seismic noises, codes between different species, and acoustic traces of ecological collapse and survival.
Sandbox Films Science Pitch Prize
The prize worth $25,000 goes to the CPH:FORUM project Matrescence by director Kathryn Ferguson and producers Rosie Crerar and Elanor Emptage. The jury said: “It’s a film about brave and punk scientists that have to use their own bodies to find answers for the rest of the population. The film we selected sheds light on an urgent, underexplored world of science that affects everyone, and we found it had an astonishing blend of artistic merit with scientific inquiry.
A description of Matrescence promises “a genre-defying, cinematic documentary that explores the transformative journey of motherhood, adapted from the groundbreaking book [with the same title] by Lucy Jones. With powerful visual storytelling, the film will interweave the rigorous scientific research and poetry of Lucy’s writing, with personal stories from a diverse range of contributors to offer a radical and profound examination of maternal metamorphosis. Ultimately, the feature aims to spark conversation around the way contemporary Western society treats its mothers, with a view to offer solutions and create lasting change.”
Al Jazeera Documentary Channel Co-Production Award
The €15,000 ($17,380) award went to CPH:FORUM project Everything Is Red and Grey by directors Shourideh C. Molavi and Shrouq Alaila. “We were especially impressed by the strength of the filmmaking team, the focused POV in creative elements which form a critical account for the historical record, and the undeniable urgency of this project,” the jury said.
“A group of young Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza overcome the tragic killing of their friend and use their tools of creative resistance to document their own genocide and their communities beyond the colonial lens of rubble and cardboard boxes,” reads a synopsis of the project.
ARTE Award
The ARTE Award was handed out to two CPH:FORUM projects in the form of two consultations with Rough Cut Services, totalling a value of €2,500 ($2,900) each. One winner is the above-mentioned Everything Is Red and Grey, the other one is We Are Volcanoes by directors Sh