Having previously triumphed in 2019 with Movements of a Nearby Mountain, Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Brameshuber has once again claimed victory in the Cinéma du Réel International Documentary Film Festival, with London winning the Grand Prize at the 48th edition of the Parisian gathering. Discovered in the Berlinale’s Panorama section, the film (sold by Square Eyes) follows Bobby who drives back and forth between Vienna and Salzburg, picking up strangers along the way and engaging in conversations which drift from mundane to deeply personal.

The feature film jury (including Jose Luis Guerín, Alain Kassanda, Félicia Atkinson, Julian Ross and Bani Khoshnoudi) further awarded its international prize to Levers by Canada’s Rhayne Vermette, and a special mention to Zhou Tao’s Chinese movie, The Rib of the Greater Bay Area.

Stealing particular focus among this year’s festival winners is Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera’s captivating first feature A Blind Song, which scored a hat trick, claiming the Cnap French Film Prize, the Sacem Prize and the Cultural Intangible Heritage Award.

Last but not least, in the 13th edition of the Work in Progress line-up, victory went to The Island (working title) by Sara Rastegar and Simone Pozzi. Nearing the end of the image editing phase, this production involving French firm Bocalupo Films and Italy’s Altara Films takes us off the coast of Sicily where Mount Stromboli has been lighting up the night since Antiquity. On this island where life and death continually rub shoulders and where everything risks annihilation at any moment, the gods have yielded to humans. Beneath the craters, they attempt to inhabit a world which is itself on the verge of meltdown…

The full list of winners is as follows: 

Cinéma du Réel Grand Prize
London - Sebastian Brameshuber (Austria)

International Prize
Levers - Rhayne Vermette (Canada)

Feature Film Jury Special Mention
The Rib of the Greater Bay Area - Zhou Tao (China)

Cnap French Film Award
A Blind Song - Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera (France)

SACEM Prize
A Blind Song - Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera

Loridan-Ivens First Film Prize
An Incomplete Calendar - Sanaz Sohrabi (Canada/Iran/Turkey/Venezuela)
Special Mention
The Cow’s Complaint - Mahdy Abo Bahat and Abdo Zin Eldin (Egypt/France/UK)

Best Short Film
Local Sensation - Tulapop Saenjaroen (Thailand)

Tënk Prize
Rebelote - Skander Mestiri (France, short film)

Other awards

ONCR Youth Prize
An Incomplete Calendar - Sanaz Sohrabi
Special Mention
The Cow’s Complaint - Mahdy Abo Bahat and Abdo Zin Eldin

Libraries Prize
London - Sebastian Brameshuber

Cultural Intangible Heritage Prize
A Blind Song - Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera

Clarens Prize for Best Humanist Documentary
Relicto - Guillermo Quintero (France/Colombia)
Special Mention
The Vanishing Point - Bani Khoshnoudi (Iran/USA/France)

Inmate Award
Hasta mañana, si Dios quiere - Alejandro Egido (Spain, short film)

First Window Audience Award
Todas las manos que solté - Laura Chará (Colombia/France, short film)
Special Mention
Love – Liza Kozlova (Belgium/Hungary/Portugal, short film)

ParisDOC Prize

Orlando X Culori WIP Coup de Cœur Award
The Island (working title) - Sara Rastegar and Simone Pozzi (France/Italy)
Special Mention
Into the Jaws of the Ogre - Mahsa Karampour (France)

Route One/Doc Prize (for short film projects)
Le roi déménage – Francesca Consonni (France)