The jury
Silvia Bahl (Germany), Mariola Wiktor (Poland), Stojan Sinadinov (North Macedonia)
Awarded films
-
Outliving Shakespeare by
Ruben Ghazaryan Inna Sahakyan
(Armenia, Netherlands, 2025, 94 min) -
Cat on My Mind by
Laila Pakalnina
(Latvia, 2025, 85 min)
Reports
Best Documentary Film
Outliving Shakespeare by Inna Sahakyan and Ruben Ghazaryan is more than an ordinary portrait of elderly residents in a post-soviet era Armenian retirement home. It depicts with subtle humor and sensitivity how art therapy transforms lonliness and losses in their lives. Protagonists in this movie still resist the uncertainty of a world full of brutal political conflicts and tensions.
Best Fiction Film
Everything that happens on screen is fiction, because everything was created as inspired by photo negatives from the 1960s to early 1980s found in a dustbin. Cat on my Mind by Laila Pakalniņa is not a traditional narrative but a visual poetic exploration and an original film essay on the memories and emotions of the people in the photos. It is also a deep reflection of human perception and the nature of cinema.
The film critics’ panel, entitled “Who Owns the Revolution?” was devoted to the examination of filmic perspectives on revolution, remembrance culture and social upheaval in cinema.
