Other winners include Leviathan, Beware of Mr Baker and A Normal LIfe.

Joshua Oppenheimer’s striking film The Act Of Killing [pictured] was awarded the main competition top prize of the DOX: Award at this year’s CPH:DOX festival staged in Copenhagen, with the director picking up the award at the closing night ceremony staged at the city’s historic Teater Bremen.

The film is about former Indonesian death squad members who recreate their crimes in cinematic ways.

The jury - directors Denis Cote, Edwin and Birgitte Staermose, along with Carlo Chatrian, the new Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival and Joanna Lapinska, Artistic Director of the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival in Poland - commended the film for “its ability to show the construction of fear in a society and for its courageous re-enactment of the madness of the past, still echoing in the present.”

A special mention went to Bill and Turner Ross for their film Tchoupitoulas, which had its world premiere at the festival, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.

Other award winners at this year’s CPH:DOX were:

New: Vision Award: Leviathan - Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel
Nordic: Dox Award: Searching For Bill - Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Sound & Vision Award: Beware Of Mr Baker - Jay Bulger
Amnesty Award: Tomorrow - Andrey Gryazev
Sonic: Dox Award: White Black Boy - Camilla Magid
Reel Talent Award: director Daniel Dencik
Politiken Audience Award: A Normal Life - Mikala Krog

Topics