Last Men in Aleppo brought home the main competition’s top prize or DOX:Award, and The John Dalli Mystery a Special Mention, while Land of the Free won the NORDIC:DOX award. The awards were handed out on Friday at Copenhagen’s Kunsthal Charlottenborg.

The DOX:Award jury consisting of director Joshua Oppenheimer (Final Cut for Real), marketing exec Laura Kim (Participant Media), programmer Caroline Libresco (Sundance Institute), producer Marie-Pierre Macia (MPM Film), film researcher/programmer Renata Santoro (Venice Film Festival) said the film about worn-torn Syria has a “devastating emotional immediacy that plunges us into a Shakespearean tragedy of a people striving to retain their humanity in the face of impossible realities.” This was the second major award for director Feras Fayyad and editor/co-director Steen Johannessen after their Sundance World Cinema Best Doc award.

The John Dalli Mystery by Jeppe Rønde won a Special Mention for its combination of gripping investigation with audacious, absurd, and despairing film noir”. The Sonntag Pictures production shared its Special Mention with Gray House by Austin Lynch and Matthew Booth.

Camilla Magid’s Land of the Free (Final Cut for Real/DK, Tuffi/FI) which depicts the harsh social reality in the exposed neighbourhood of South Central Los Angeles convinced the jury for its ability to take people ‘into the depths of human vulnerability’. “Its well-chosen and poignant stories forcefully mirror each other. The film achieves an incredible intimacy with its protagonists and stays true to its cinematic choices,’ noted the jury.

The Norwegian film ’69 Minutes of 86 Days’ by Egil Håskjold Larsen which follows a three-year-old girl and her family’s long journey from a Greek refugee centre to Uppsala, picked a Special Mention from the NORDIC:DOX award strand. The documentary was produced by Sant & Usant.

The list of awards also includes:

  • Audience –Politiken Award to City of Ghosts by Matthew Heineman which received a standing ovation when the director and two civilian journalists part of the ‘Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently’ movement came on stage. 
  • New:Vision Award to Life Imitation by China’s Zhou Chen, with a Special Mention to the Norwegian short The Lost Dreams of Naoki Hayakawa by Ane Hjort Guttu and Daisuke Kosugi. 
  • Next:Wave Award to Argentine’s 1996 Lucy and the Corpses in the Pool  and the Special Mention to Phantom of Illumination. 
  • F:ACT Award to Radio Kobani by Reber Dosky (The Netherlands), Special Mention to Trophy (US).