Jury & Awards
The award ceremony of the 22nd Verzió Film Festival will take place on 19th November at 19:30 at the lobby of Toldi cinema. The ceremony is open to the public and requires no registration.
The Closing film, LOVE-22-LOVE screening starts at 20:30 at Toldi cinema. A limited number of tickets are available at the cinema box office and online.
Hungarian Competition Jury
MARIA KRAUSS (1981), documentary film producer, manager of cultural projects; social activist. Co-founder of a boutique production company Plesnar & Krauss FILMS. Produced and co-produced strong character driven documentaries screened and awarded at national and international festivals. She has wide experience in international co-productions and in industry events. Participated in several editions of Doc Lab Poland, Baltic Sea Docs, EDP and Match Me! during Locarno FF or Visions du Reel-Pitching. Last titles she is involved is “In The Rearview (won dozens of prizes all over the world, shortlisted for Oscars), Faces of Agata (nominated for Polish Film Awards Eagles) or The Guest (best Cinematography Award at IDFA). Member of Polish Producers Alliance KIPA, Polish Film Academy and European Film Academy.
Lie has a background as newspaper and magazine editor – for 30 years. He is the editor of the 'cinepolitical' documentary magazine Modern Times Review (since 2017). As a filmmaker he also creates essayistic documentaries. He is now working on the feature "Palestine – Three Essays on Freedom".
Igor Stanojević is a Serbian filmmaker and film curator. He is the author of numerous short films which have been screened and awarded at international film festivals. He is currently in postproduction on his next film Vidasil (TBD). He has been the Director of Programming of Beldocs IDFF since 2018.
Best Hungarian Film Award: 400,000 HUF
Winner: My Father's Daughter
(Hungary, Slovakia, d. Lea Podhradská)
Jury statement
This year’s Verzió Hungarian competition took us on a ride through family stories about life, perseverance and the will to survive. The winning film introduced us to the story of a protagonist who, from the very beginning of her life, was abandoned and abused, left to fend for herself, and nevertheless found the strength to endure. In the end, the sea is always beautiful, even if it smells like fish.
For its elegant blend of personal investigation, poetic imagery and raw emotions, we award the main prize to Lea Podhradská for My Father’s Daughter.
International Competition Jury
Eroll Bilibani is a film producer based in Kosovo. His work includes award-winning short films like ON THE WAY, DISPLACED, IN BETWEEN, and HOME. He leads DokuLab, the educational program of DokuFest, where he supports young filmmakers and develops programs that use film and storytelling to explore social issues and complex topics.
Eroll also coordinates DokuFest’s Short Film Forum, the first platform of its kind in the Western Balkans. He currently serves as Chair of the Kosovo Cinematography Center Council and is a member of the European Film Academy.
Júlia Hack is a film editor based in Budapest, Hungary. She graduated in Film Editing from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in 2011, and previously completed the university’s Television Production program under the guidance of documentary filmmaker Ibolya Fekete. With over 15 years of experience, she has worked across both fiction and documentary, editing numerous television series and feature projects. Her credits include HBO original productions such as In Treatment (Terápia), Golden Life (Aranyélet), and The Informant (A besúgó), as well as the large-scale historical series Hunyadi. She has collaborated with acclaimed directors including Ildikó Enyedi, Orsi Nagypál, Attila Gigor, Zsombor Dyga, and Áron Mátyássy.
Passionate about documentary storytelling, she edited Anna Rubi’s ‘Your Life Without Me’, a project she followed over five years. The film received multiple awards, including Best Hungarian Documentary and the Audience Award at the 21st Verzió Film Festival, and the Human Rights Award at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival. Member of the Hungarian Society of Film and Video Editors (HSE) and the Hungarian Documentary Association ( HDA).
Anca Păunescu studied German philology and film, and for the last 9 years she has been intensively involved in documentary film selection, curation and creative advising for special programmes at various European festivals.
She is currently co-curator of One World Romania and main documentary film programmer at the Neisse Film Festival- Germany.
(She has also been a jury member at Makedox, Kasseler Dokfest, Iceland Documentary FF, DOK Leipzig Co-Pro Market, Fipadoc and others.)
Best International Documentary Film Award: 1000€
Winner: 9-Month Contract
(Georgia, Bulgaria, Germany, d. Ketevan Vashagashvili)
Special Mention: With Hasan in Gaza
(Germany, Palestine, France, Qatar, d. Kamal Aljafari)
Jury statement
After watching all 9 films in this year’s International Competition, our jury reached a unanimous decision after (spending time) watching and discussing each work in depth. We were struck by the strength, diversity, and integrity of the program, thus, we want to acknowledge the selection committee and the festival team for curating a lineup that brought together this slate of films. In this category we have one Special Mention and one award for the best film.
We want to give a special mention to a film that functions as a time capsule for a place that no longer exists, yet refuses to disappear. The filmmaker creates an interactive dialogue between what we see and what we know, inviting our minds to fill the space between presence and absence, reminding us that at a time when a land and its people are facing erasure, memory becomes a vital act of resistance.
The Special Mention in the International Competition goes to 'With Hassan in Gaza' by Kamal Al Jaffari.
Now we move to reveal the best film in the International Competition.
What moved us most was the dignity and love that persist despite every pressure. The film reminds us that hope can take root even in the most unstable circumstances, and that humanity can prevail where institutions fail. With unobtrusive cinematography and finely balanced editing, the film allows gestures, silences, and the tender bond between a mother and her daughter to carry the emotional weight of the story. By navigating the unregulated realm of commercial surrogacy, the film reveals a world that commodifies everything - even the human body - and exposes the strain placed on families by crumbling social systems. In doing so, it shows how the personal and the political are never truly separate, especially for those forced to survive within complex and unequal societies.
The winner of the International Competition is '9-month Contract' by Ketevan Vashagashvili.
Doc Future Competition Jury
Dávid Mikulán is an Intermedia artist and filmmaker who graduated from the Fine Art University, Budapest. He has been making films since age 12. His artistic practice is influenced by skateboarding, punk music, fluxus, video art and different experimental genres. His multidisciplinary work's main focus is how public spaces have an effect on social structures. His first feature documentary entitled KIX was being co-produced in 3 different countries, with the involvement of major broadcasters (ARTE, HBO etc.). Kix were presented and awarded by numerous festivals (CPH:DOX, TIDF, DOK.fest, stb.), it had many special screenings with ngos, schools, experts with a mission of starting a larger discussion in the topic of child protection, social mobilisation.
OLIVER SERTIĆ is a documentary producer and festival programmer from Croatia, currently living in Bucharest, Romania. Until now, he has produced and co-produced around 40 feature and short documentary and experimental films. For 18 years, worked as a journalist and editor-in-chief in different media and as an organizer of cultural events. The founder of the organization RESTART (2007), where he established Restart Laboratory, Dokukino, and the distribution department Restart Label. The last 15 years has been tutoring at the School of Documentary Film in Zagreb. Has cooperated with numerous film festivals as a PR, programmer, producer, and advisor (Zagreb FF, ZagrebDox, DokuFest, Vukovar FF, Makedox, DORF, RAF, Supetar Super FF, Moldox…). Since 2007, he has worked as a selector and programming director at the Liburnia Film Festival, a Croatian documentary film festival in Opatija, where he served as director for nine years.
Sofia Tocar is a film distributor and festival agent, leading the short film distribution slate at Square Eyes—a Vienna-based agency known for bold, non-mainstream cinema.
Previously, she was part of the Institute of Documentary Film in Prague, where she coordinated the East Silver Caravan and East Doc Market. With a background in art history, Sofia also works as a curator and co-creator of craftivist projects.
Doc Future Award: 1000€
Winner: Make It Look Real
(Belgium, Pakistan, Netherlands, d. Danial Shah)
Special Mention: I Am Here
(Portugal, d. Zsófi Paczolay, Dorian Rivière)
Jury statement
We saw many brave filmmakers and protagonists. Documentaries that give a chance to learn how others deal with something we also might face in our lives, where we are all the directors of our documentary, but how can we turn from victims to heroes? In our crumbling societies, homeless people are one of the especially vulnerable communities. The documentary team built a strong trust with remarkable individuals to closely depict their everyday struggles. Carefully crafted in all its elements, especially editing, this film is showing us the burning importance of care and solidarity, the values we are rapidly losing all around the world, particularly in Europe. A continent that we like to call the place of safety and freedom, where we need to understand that we are as strong as our weakest member.
For all mentioned and much more, we have decided to give a special mention to the film I'M HERE by Zsófi Paczolay and Dorian Rivière.
We would like to award a film that shows us how to reimagine ourselves and reality through the lens of a camera. The director’s sensibility and respectful approach to capturing a space of co-creation — one that also functions as a mirror — allows us to look at and laugh at ourselves and to better understand each other’s dreams and fears.
The winner of the Doc Future Competition is MAKE IT LOOK REAL by Danial Shah.
Young Jury
Irem Aysin Deprem is originally from Turkey and have been living in Budapest since 2018. She studied Film and Media for my BA and currently pursuing her MA in Art and Design Management. Alongside her studies, she works on film productions. She is currently exploring ways to connect her curatorial studies with her filmmaking background.
Amina Ghazouani came from Tunisia and she is a PhD researcher in Budapest at ELTE. Her passion for cinema started very young, when her father would bring them DVDs every saturday and they had been look forward to every end of the week to watch it. Once her mom would reward their hard work in school by taking them to the movie theaters, her passion grew stronger. She enjoys watching movies and writing small commentaries on Letterboxd.
Éva Nádasdi is a 25-year-old aspiring poet and journalist. She recently finished her master’s degree in Media and Communication. In 2024 she covered the Verzió Film Festival as a journalist, and it was an inspiring experience.
Her favorite documentary is The Salt of the Earth by Wim Wenders, which is very close to the kind of films she truly admires. She is especially drawn to slow, atmospheric movies that she can completely immerse herself in. For her films are like poetry — and sometimes she imagines poems as documentary films.
Botond Polecsák was born in Budapest and is currently studying photography and filmmaking in high school. After graduation, he plans to continue his studies, focusing on photography and cinematography. His connection with cinema goes back to his childhood, but it was only about a year ago that he began taking it seriously, especially the side of it behind the camera. This year, his first short film was selected for the Országos Diákfilmszemle Festival, and it won first place in its category at the Lift-Off Global Network Festival in the UK.
Solongo Soninbayar is a filmmaker based in Budapest. She holds a Master's degree in Filmmaking from Eötvös Loránd University. Formerly a TV producer, she is currently developing her documentary short film and writing research on the representation of identity in diasporic cinema. She is interested in personal documentary films that show simple yet complex human emotions. Her favorite documentaries include I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, Fragments of a Life Loved and Fire of Love.
Best Human Rights Film Award: 1000€
Winner: Cutting Through Rocks
(Iran, Germany, USA, Netherlands, Qatar, Chile, Canada, d. Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni)
Special Mention: Khartoum
(Sudan, UK, Germany, Qatar, d. Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Phil Cox)
Jury statement
This week, the documentaries we watched carried us through difficult grounds, leaving us with sorrow, questions about the future, and unease about the present. As Hayao Miyazaki said, ‘Before teaching that life is hard, I want to make films that show there are good things in living.’ Cinema, at its best, does more than mirror our world; it insists that hope persists.
Tonight, our award recognizes a film that embodies both unease and hope. Cutting Through Rocks tells the intimate story of a long forgotten womanhood; strong, proud, yet tender, following a woman who was born into the harshest disadvantage simply for being a woman, challenges a society that assumes only men can create change.
Our task was not easy, as the films carried us across geographies and emotions. One deserving Special Mention is Khartoum, a film that is a deep wound to the world. Yet, amidst the misery, it shows a population that dreams, sings, dances, and longs to return to their land, reminding us that even in the face of oppression, hope, courage, and the desire for change endure.
We are truly grateful for this opportunity and humbled to be part of something that bears witness to these stories and gives them a voice.
