04/11/2025 - Mariam Chachia and Nik Voigt’s work in progress has come out on top in an industry strand that foregrounded decolonial perspectives, job insecurity, female authorship and community resilience

The teams behind Superhumans (left) and Adam’s Tooth with their awards (© Andrea Špaková)

This year’s work-in-progress industry strand of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, the New Visions Forum, showcased a global selection of non-fiction, hybrid and essayistic pieces on memory and migration, post-conflict reckoning and resistance, environmental extraction and “green” economies, bodies and care, as well as intimate self-portraits. They all pushed form, re-enactments and digital speculation into new terrain, from the Icelandic fjords and the Anatolian steppe to Gaza, the Mekong and the Caucasus. The projects collectively foregrounded decolonial perspectives, job insecurity, female authorship and community resilience.

The Georgian-British project Adam’s Tooth took home the Ji.hlava New Visions Award for the Most Promising European Project. Directed by Mariam Chachia and Nik Voigt, and produced by Tekla Machavariani and Chachia herself, the project was praised by the jury for its “cinematic lens and wry humorous tone”, embodying what they described as an act of “creative resistance to institutional injustice”. The filmmakers will receive post-production services worth €15,000 from UPP. Adam’s Tooth combines absurdist humour with political allegory, following two Georgian men guarding the skeleton of a prehistoric wolf. It grants them the freedom to study their own past, in a surreal, Kafkaesque fable about censorship, resistance and the absurdities of power. The jury statement noted that the project reflects “cruel political systems infringing on basic human rights” but does so with “wit, humanity and formal inventiveness”, capturing what the jurors called “the Georgian nightmare” through an artful balance of satire and emotional truth.

The Ji.hlava New Visions Award, in cooperation with Soundsquare, offering sound post-production services worth €5,000, went to Superhumans (Austria), directed by Inna Shevchenko and produced by Arash T Riahi. Told through intimate, tactile fragments, rather than battlefield imagery, Superhumans transforms the aftermath of war into a visceral meditation on healing and identity, capturing the quiet heroism of amputee survivors at Lviv’s Superhumans Center as they rebuild both body and self. It’s therefore a war film that is felt, not seen. The jury described it as “a moving and intimate work that intertwines the beauty of life with the challenges of remaking oneself after trauma”. The film impressed with its cinéma vérité approach, humour and hope, as well as with its “clearly articulated vision for sound design and dramaturgy”. Superhumans also received the #Docs Connect Taskovski Training Award, granting mentorship for festival strategy and distribution.

Further industry honours recognised emerging filmmakers and international collaborations exploring memory, belonging and identity. The Cannes Docs – Marché du Film Award went to Correspondances to Inhabit the World (Uruguay/Switzerland/Spain) by Laura Gabay. Interweaving friendship, exile and the politics of visibility, the project traces the aftermath of a homophobic attack in London through letters, sounds and images shared between two Uruguayan women, transforming media-inflicted trauma into an intimate cinematic dialogue about care and the right to desire freely. Karoliina Lahti’s Laura Zahirah: Just a Regular Muslim (Saudi Arabia/Indonesia/Finland) earned the DAE Award for its timely portrait of identity and faith. It follows a Finnish woman who converts to Islam and pursues her dream of becoming a renowned Quran reciter in Indonesia, as she tries to get close to her estranged father. The Sheffield DocFest Networking Award was presented to The Pylon and the Lake (France) by Sylvain Yonnet, while the Meditalents Residency Award went to Momtski Kamen – The Girl’s Rock (Greece) by Maria Sidiropoulou and Chloe Bruhat.

Here is the full list of award winners:

Ji.hlava New Visions Award for Most Promising European Project (in cooperation with UPP)
Adam’s Tooth – Mariam Chachia, Nik Voigt (UK/Georgia)
Producers: Tekla Machavariani, Mariam Chachia

Ji.hlava New Visions Award for Most Promising European Project (in cooperation with Soundsquare)
Superhumans – Inna Shevchenko (Austria)
Producer: Arash T Riahi

Ji.hlava New Visions Award for Most Promising US Project (in partnership with AmDocs)
Newville – Pisie Hochheim, Tony Oswald (USA/Uganda/Switzerland)
Producers: Pisie Hochheim, Tony Oswald

Cannes Docs – Marché du Film Award
Correspondances to Inhabit the World – Laura Gabay (Uruguay/Switzerland/Spain)
Producer: Vania Jaikin

DAE Award
Laura Zahirah: Just a Regular Muslim – Karoliina Lahti (Saudi Arabia/Indonesia/Finland)
Producer: Serj Rimma

#Docs Connect Taskovski Training Award
Superhumans – Inna Shevchenko

Sheffield DocFest Networking Award
The Pylon and the Lake – Sylvain Yonnet (France)
Producers: Cécile Lestrade, Elise Hug

Lightdox Award
Dear You – Aurora Brachman (USA)
Producers: Khaula Malik, Lo Heimer

Docs by the Sea Award
Drifting by the River Rhythm – Polen Ly (Cambodia)
Producer: Daniel Mattes

Meditalents Residency Award
Momtski Kamen – The Girl’s Rock – Maria Sidiropoulou, Chloe Bruhat (Greece)
Producer: Maria Sidiropoulou

Jacob Burns Film Center Award
Newville – Pisie Hochheim, Tony Oswald