The awards of the 48th Cinéma du Réel 2026 were handed out March 28 with the Grand Prix Cinéma going to London by Sebastian Brameshuber. The Cinéma du réel International Award was handed to Levers by Rhayne Vermette, while the Cnap Award for a French Film went to A Blind Song by Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera. Among the professional ParisDOC Awards, the Coup de cœur Orlando x Culori went to L’Île by Sara Rastegar and Simone Pozzi.
AWARDS OF THE FEATURE FILM JURY
- Grand Prix Cinéma du réel 2026. Winner: London by Sebastian Brameshuber. Synopsis: Bobby drives back and forth between Vienna and Salzburg, picking up strangers along the way and sharing conversations that drift from the everyday to the deeply personal. In this tender portrait of today’s Europe, anonymity and warmth still go hand in hand.
- Cinéma du réel International Award 2026. Winner: Levers by Rhayne Vermette. Synopsis: A large blast erupts in the sky, giving rise to a global day of darkness. Worldwide, people huddle around the their television sets awaiting a new sun to rise, yet in Manitoba, life carries on as usual.
- Cnap Award for French Films 2026. Winner: A Blind Song by Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera. Synopsis: A choir of sighted and unsighted members travels to Japan to sing in the footsteps of the Goze, blind itinerant female musicians whose tradition dates back to medieval times and no longer exists today. Over the course of the journey, their paths, their voices, and moments in time intersect. And our eyes gradually get accustomed to the depths of darkness.
- Sacem Award 2026. Winner: A Blind Song by Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera, music by Lionel Marchetti and Natacha Muslera. Synopsis: A choir of sighted and unsighted members travels to Japan to sing in the footsteps of the Goze, blind itinerant female musicians whose tradition dates back to medieval times and no longer exists today. Over the course of the journey, their paths, their voices, and moments in time intersect. And our eyes gradually get accustomed to the depths of darkness.
- Feature film jury special mention: The Rib of the Greater Bay Area by Zhou Tao. Synopsis: Sampling waterside vistas from the Pearl River to Victoria Harbour, the film unfolds as a scroll across the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area. Infra-sensory vibrations become reverberant layers, sensing the distance produced by total interconnection.
AWARDS OF THE SHORT FILM AND FIRST FILM JURY
- First film Loridan-Ivens Award 2026. Winner: An Incomplete Calendar by Sanaz Sohrabi. Synopsis: A forgotten musical record connects Caracas to Tehran, revealing untold stories of oil, not as a commodity, but as a political leverage for the liberation struggles in Palestine and building Pan-Arab solidarity between 1960-1970.
- Special Mention: The Cow’s Complaint by Mahdy Abo Bahat and Abdo Zin Eldin. Synopsis: Ali Al Gazzar – a Sufi sculptor – encounters a visitation at midday. The guest spurs Ali to return to his creations, igniting him with the spiritual imagination of Sufi peasants, peripheral objects and rural animals in Cairo’s City of the Dead.
- Short film Award 2026. Winner: Local Sensations by Tulapop Saenjaroen. Synopsis: Opening with a quote from the architect Chatri Prakitnonthakan, “How to Design a Modern Monument That Won’t Become a Shrine”, the film offers a singular exploration of monuments in Thai society.
- Tënk Award 2026. Winner: Once Again by Skander Mestiri. Synopsis: Over the course of a weekend, a filmmaking couple attempts to blend into a community of uniform collectors. In this world of historical reenactment, where the lightness of role-playing collides with the weight of the memories it awakens, the game becomes increasingly unsettling.
AWARDS OF THE YOUNG JURY
- GNCR – Young jury Award 2026. Winner: An Incomplete Calendar by Sanaz Sohrabi. Synopsis: A forgotten musical record connects Caracas to Tehran, revealing untold stories of oil, not as a commodity, but as a political leverage for the liberation struggles in Palestine and building Pan-Arab solidarity between 1960-1970.
- Special Mention: The Cow’s Complaint by Mahdy Abo Bahat and Abdo Zin Eldin. Synopsis: Ali Al Gazzar – a Sufi sculptor – encounters a visitation at midday. The guest spurs Ali to return to his creations, igniting him with the spiritual imagination of Sufi peasants, peripheral objects and rural animals in Cairo’s City of the Dead.
AWARD OF THE LIBRARY JURY
- Library Award 2026. Winner: London by Sebastian Brameshuber. Synopsis: Bobby drives back and forth between Vienna and Salzburg, picking up strangers along the way and sharing conversations that drift from the everyday to the deeply personal. In this tender portrait of today’s Europe, anonymity and warmth still go hand in hand.
AWARD OF THE DIRECTION GÉNÉRALE DES PATRIMOINES ET DE L’ARCHITECTURE DU MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE
- Cultural Intangible Heritage Award 2026. Winner: A Blind Song by Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera. Synopsis: A choir of sighted and unsighted members travels to Japan to sing in the footsteps of the Goze, blind itinerant female musicians whose tradition dates back to medieval times and no longer exists today. Over the course of the journey, their paths, their voices, and moments in time intersect. And our eyes gradually get accustomed to the depths of darkness.
AWARD OF THE CLARENS FOUNDATION FOR HUMANISM JURY
- Clarens Award for Humanist Filmmaking 2026. Winner: Relicto by Guillermo Quintero. Synopsis: “At 105, Sixto Muñoz, known as ‘the last Tinigua man’, left his home for one final journey into the Amazon and disappeared. Following his trail along the Guayabero River, the film retraces his fading world and the extinction of an entire culture.”
- Special Mention: The Vanishing Point by Bani Khoshnoudi. Synopsis: After her film on the Green Movement was banned in Iran, the filmmaker, now in exile, breaks her family’s long silence about a disappeared cousin, executed during the 1988 purges in political prisons. Intertwining her personal story with that of her country, she conveys an unquenchable collective thirst for freedom.
AWARD OF THE BOIS-D’ARCY INMATES JURY
- Inmate Award 2026. Winner: Hasta mañana si Dios quiere by Alejandro Egido. Synopsis: Alejandro Egido returns to his paternal village, now visited only to bury relatives. The film subtly parallels the fragility of human life with that of a village on the verge of disappearing.
AWARD BY MEDIAPART INTERNET USERS AND THE AUDIENCE JURY
- First Window Audience Award 2026. Winner: Todas las manos que solté by Laura Chará. Synopsis: Twenty years after her mother’s death, Laura returns to the family home in Cauca, Colombia. Born from an absence, the film moves through women’s voices, silences, and echoes of the past. A gesture of remembrance, between lingering light and the darkness of oblivion.
- Special Mention. Winner: Love Is by Liza Kozlova. Synopsis: Twenty years after her mother’s death, Laura returns to the family home in Cauca, Colombia. Born from an absence, the film moves through women’s voices, silences, and echoes of the past. A gesture of remembrance, between lingering light and the darkness of oblivion.
PARISDOC AWARDS
- Coup de cœur Orlando x Culori 2026: The Island by Sara Rastegar and Simone Pozzi. Production countries: France, Italy. Original title: L’île (working title). Production : Bocalupo Films (Jasmina Sijercic). Stage: End of image editing. Jury statement: The Orlando Culori Award, is given to a land-become-film, with a spellbinding and explosive aesthetic that captivated us through its intensely human encounters. This project offers a panorama of humanity in a struggle that gave us home and inspires us when we think to tomorrow. A poetic film featuring larger-than-life characters, the indomitable island of Stromboli is presented in an intimate and truthful way that, to our knowledge, represents a first in cinema.
- Special Mention: In the Mouth of the Ogre by Mahsa Karampour. Production country: France. Original title: Dans la gueule de l’ogre. Production: Les Films du Bilboquet (Mathilde Raczymow). Stage: Post-production Jury statement (part): This beautiful story of a sister and her brother – which invites us into a powerful form of introspection on the intimate and the political – is elevated by the film’s great musicality, its editing skills, and the uncompromising tenderness of its gaze.
- Route One/DOC Award 2026: Le Roi déménage by Francesca Consonni. Jury statement: For a sister’s tender gaze on her brothers, attentive to the richness of their inner worlds, and for the humanism of her vision of the world around us; we have chosen to award a film that impressed us by the inventive and joyful approach of a young filmmaker who set her story at the cusp of reality.
