BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

THE TALE OF SILYAN • National Geographic
(Republic of North Macedonia, United States, United Kingdom)

Tamara Kotevska | Director
Tamara Kotevska, Jean Dakar, Anna Hashmi, Jordanco Petkovski | Producers

—
Apocalypse in the Tropics • Netflix
Life After • Multitude Films
Seeds • Interior Films
Songs of Slow Burning Earth • EPF Media

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

LOOKING FOR DONKEY
(Mexico, Venezuela)

Juan Vicente Manrique | Director
Juan Vicente Manrique, María Benítez | Producers

—
Correct Me If I’m Wrong
If a Walnut Falls
Mama Micra • interfilm Berlin
Their Eyes • The New York Times Op-Docs

BEST DIRECTOR

BRITTANY SHYNE
SEEDS • Interior Films
(United States)

Danielle Varga, Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, Brittany Shyne | Producers

—
Petra Costa | Apocalypse in the Tropics • Netflix
Reid Davenport | Life After • Multitude Films
Olha Zhurba | Songs of Slow Burning Earth • EPF Media
Tamara Kotevska | The Tale of Silyan • National Geographic

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

THE TALE OF SILYAN • National Geographic
(Republic of North Macedonia, United States, United Kingdom)

Cinematography by Jean Dakar

Tamara Kotevska | Director
Tamara Kotevska, Jean Dakar, Anna Hashmi, Jordanco Petkovski | Producers

—
Champions of the Golden Valley • Sturgefilm | Ben Sturgulewski
Redlight to Limelight • BBC Storyville | Subhadeep Dey, Mrinmoy Mondal, Rupesh Chaturbedi
The Town That Drove Away • Polish National TV | Natalia Pietsch, Grzegorz Piekarski
Yanuni • Submarine | Richard Ladkani

BEST EDITING

WTO/99 • Foghorn Features
(United States)

Editing by Alex Megaro & Ian Bell

Ian Bell | Director
Laura Tatham, Ian Bell, Alex Megaro | Producers

—
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow • Argot | Julia Loktev
Natchez • ITVS | Pablo Proenza
Suburban Fury | Jason Reid, Robinson Devor, Adam Sekuler, Matt Levinthal
The White House Effect • Netflix | Daniel Claridge, Pedro Kos, Sara Newens

BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC SCORE

THE SORCERER: JULIO ZACHRISSON
(Panama)

Composed by Fréderic Filiartre

Felix Guardia | Director
Tomás Cortés | Producer

—
Divia | Sam Slater
Free Leonard Peltier | Mato Wayuhi
Shuffle | Matthew Dougherty
Writing Hawa | Afshin Azizi

BEST PRODUCTION

APOCALYPSE IN THE TROPICS • Netflix
(United States)

Petra Costa | Director
Alessandra Orofino, Petra Costa | Producers

—
The Alabama Solution • HBO Max
Cover-Up • Netflix
Life After • Multitude Films
Seeds • Interior Films

BEST SOUND DESIGN

ONLY ON EARTH • DR / HBO / SVT
(Denmark, Spain)

Sound Design by Thomas Perez-Pape

Robin Petré | Director
Malene Flindt Pedersen, Signe Skov Thomsen, Carles Brugueras, Marieke van den Bersselaar | Producers

—
Always | Yannick Dauby
Architecton • A24 | Alexander Dudarev
Song of Breath | Rico Andriolo, Manu Gerber
The Silence of My Hands • AD Maiora | Rubí J. Pérez

BEST WRITING

APOCALYPSE IN THE TROPICS • Netflix
(United States)

Written by Petra Costa, Alessandra Orofino, Nels Bangerter,
& David Barker

Petra Costa | Director
Alessandra Orofino, Petra Costa | Producers

—
Redlight to Limelight • BBC Storyville | Bipuljit Basu
River of Grass | Sasha Wortzel
Sally • National Geographic | Cristina Costantini, Tom Maroney
Suburban Fury | Robinson Devor, Jason Reid, Bob Fink, Charles Mudede

BEST CURATED SERIES

99 (France)

Jérôme Plan | Executive Producer

—
Independent Lens • PBS
POV Season 38 • PBS
POV Shorts Season 8 • PBS
The New York Times Op-Docs • The New York Times Op-Docs

BEST EPISODIC SERIES

CITIZEN NATION • PBS
(United States)

Bret Sigler, Singeli Agnew | Directors
Veronika Adaskova, Emily Orr, Wesley Harris, Cole Cahill, Victor Couto, Tom Brown | Producers

—
Earnhardt • Prime Video
Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest 1977-2015 • HBO Max
The Sing Sing Chronicles • PNBC News Studios in association with Trilogy Films, MSNBC Films
Turning Point: The Vietnam War • Netflix

BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARY

ONE TO ONE: JOHN AND YOKO •
Magnolia Pictures / HBO Documentary Films
(United Kingdom)

Kevin Macdonald, Sam Rice-Edwards | Directors
Peter Worsley, Kevin Macdonald, Alice Webb | Producers

—
El Canto de las Manos • Feel Sales
Move Ya Body: The Birth of House
Selena y Los Dinos • Netflix
Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) • Hulu

DAVID L. WOLPER STUDENT DOCUMENTARY

WHAT A DAY, WHAT A LIFE • National Film and Television School, UK
(United Kingdom)

Maylana Colchete | Director
Luiza Amelio de Carvalho, Maylana Colchete | Producers

—
Beyond Eden • National Film and Television School, UK
Dancing in Tomorrowland • UCLA
Two Days on the Interstate • National Film and Television School, UK
Two Travelling Aunties • National Film and Television School, UK

PARE LORENTZ AWARD

RIVER OF GRASS
(United States)

Sasha Wortzel | Director
Danielle Varga, Sasha Wortzel | Producers

PIONEER AWARD

IMPACT PARTNERS

Impact Partners is a Brooklyn-based film fund dedicated to supporting independent documentary storytelling that entertains audiences, engages with pressing social issues, and propels the art of cinema forward. In 2007, Impact Partners pioneered a unique model of funding that brings together a community of investors with filmmakers to tell powerful stories about critical issues facing our world. Over the span of 18 years, Impact Partners has been involved in the financing of over 150 films including: Academy Award® winners and nominees like Icarus, Sugarcane, Of Fathers And Sons, How To Survive A Plague, and Hell And Back Again, Peabody Award winners Aftershock, Immigration Nation, Audrie & Daisy, and The Newburgh Sting, Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner and IDA Best Documentary Feature winner Dina, and Independent Spirit Award winner Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Recent releases include Apocalypse In The Tropics, Folktales, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, Mistress Dispeller, and Songs From The Hole.

EMERGING FILMMAKER AWARD

BRITTANY SHYNE • SEEDS

Brittany Shyne is an independent filmmaker and cinematographer based in Dayton, Ohio. Her debut feature, Seeds, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the esteemed U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Award.

Working in the narrative and nonfiction form, Shyne’s work seeks to depict the complexity of everyday life by examining themes such as personal histories, alienation, and cultural modernization. By utilizing observational techniques and poetic language, her films lyrically weave together frameworks of race, class, culture, and family lineage. She has worked as a cinematographer on films such as The Debutantes (Tribeca, ‘24), This Time, This Place (Tribeca, ‘21), and Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar’s Academy Award-winning film American Factory 美国 工厂(Sundance ‘19). Shyne was the recipient of the 2021 Artist Disruptor Award from the Center of Cultural Power.

ABC NEWS VIDEO SOURCE AWARD

DEAF PRESIDENT NOW! • Apple TV+
(United States)

Nyle DiMarco, Davis Guggenheim | Directors
Amanda Rohlke, Davis Guggenheim, Jonathan King, Nyle DiMarco, Michael Harte, Wayne Betts Jr. | Producers

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

JULIE GOLDMAN

Julie Goldman is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning producer and executive producer of documentary and fiction films and series. Goldman is the first documentary producer to receive the Amazon Studios Sundance Institute Producers Award and the Cinereach Producer’s Award.

She recently produced Selena y Los Dinos, which premiered at Sundance and won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award, in addition to Audience Awards at SXSW and Miami Film Festivals. In 2023, three of her films premiered at Sundance: the Emmy-winning Victim/Suspect, the Grand Jury Prize-winning and Oscar-Nominated The Eternal Memory, and Roger Ross Williams’ acclaimed fiction feature Cassandro, starring Gael Garcia Bernal and featuring Bad Bunny.

Goldman produced Nanfu Wang’s Peabody Award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted In the Same Breath; Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground; the Peabody and Emmy Awards winner A Thousand Cuts, The Return of Tanya Tucker featuring Brandi Carlile, and the Oscar-nominated films Life, Animated, and Abacus. She executive-produced the Oscar-nominated The Mole Agent and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Weiner.

Goldman’s current slate includes the second season of the hit Netflix series A Man on the Inside starring Ted Danson, and new films from directors such as Maite Alberdi, Roger Ross Williams, Kathlyn Horan, and Marcus Lindeen.