Deming Chen’s debut documentary Always won the top DOX:Award prize at Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) 2025.
Set in the mountains of China’s Hunan province, Always follows an eight-year-old boy living with his poor family, who discovers poetry as a way of describing his feelings and place in the world.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
The US-France-China co-production is produced by Hansen Lin for US company Timelight Film, in co-production with France’s SaNoSi Production and Taiwan’s Rustic Pictures.
Always receives the €10,000 in the main competition, from a jury of Rikke Tambo Andersen, Max Kestner, Nicolas Rapold, Adele Tulli and Raul Nino Zambrano.
The jury said “this exquisitely shot chronicle of a rural farming family is alive with compassion and poetry.”
The festival recorded a 20% attendance increase on last year, breaking its all-time record on Monday 24 after just five days of the 2025 edition (final figures still to come).
Monica Stromdahl’s Flophouse America received a special mention in the DOX:Award competition. It centres on a 12-year-old boy who finds glimmers of hope in an unexpected tragedy, while living with the ramifications of his parents’ alcohol abuse. Beathe Hofseth and Siri Natvik produced the film, with Lightdox handling sales.
Ukrainian documentary 2000 Meters To Andriivka took the F:Act award prize, having its international premiere at CPH:DOX after a launch at Sundance. The latest film from 20 Days In Mariupol director Mstyslav Chernov, it follows the efforts of a Ukrainian platoon to liberate a strategic village from Russian forces during the ongoing war.
The jury credited “a masterpiece in filmmaking: a haunting, multi layered portrayal of war comparable to All Quiet on the Western Front”; Dogwoof handles sales.
The Human:Rights award went to Ketevan Vashagashvili’s 9-Month Contract, about a woman who bears repeated surrogate children. “Through its visual poetry the film balances delicately between the harshness of their situation and the humanity of Zhana and her intense love for her daughter,” noted the jury.
Further prizes went to Kristina Shtubert’s Abode Of Dawn in the Next:Wave competition; Nina Paninnguaq Skydsbjerg and Sofie Rordam’s Greenlandic title Walls – Akinni Inuk in the Nordic:Dox competition; and Juliette Le Monnyer’s single-take Ramallah, Palestine, December 2018 in the New:Vision strand.
Voting for the audience award will continue until the end of the online festival, with the winner unveiled on April 4.
The 2025 CPH:DOX featured 71 films in competition across six categories, including 56 world premieres.
CPH:DOX 2025 winners
DOX:Award – Always (US-Fr-China) dir. Deming Chen
Special mention – Flophouse America (Nor-Neth-US) dir. Monica Stromdahl
F:Act Award – 2000 Meters To Andriivka (Ukr) dir. Mstyslav Chernov
Special mention – The Perfect Neighbor (US) dir. Geeta Gandbhir
Human:Rights award – 9-Month Contract (Geo-Bul-Ger) dir. Ketevan Vashagashvili
Special mention – The Encampments (US) dirs. Michael T. Workman, Kei Pritsker
Nordic:Dox award – Walls – Akinni Inuk (Green) dirs. Nina Paninnguaq Skydsbjerg, Sofie Rordam
Special mention – The Nicest Men On Earth (Den) dir. Josefine Exner, Sebastian Gerdes
Next:Wave award – Abode Of Dawn (Ger) dir. Kristina Shtubert
Special mention – Who Witnessed The Temples Fall (Sp) dir. Lucia Selva
New:Vision award – Ramallah, Palestine, December 2018 (Bel) dir. Juliette Le Monniyer
Special mention – Scrap (Fr) dir. Noemie Lobry
Inter:Active award – Constantinopoliad (UK) dirs. Sister Sylvester, Nadah El Shazly
Special mention – The Garden Says (Den) dirs. Uri Kranot, Michelle Kranot, Sara Topsoe Jensen, Sarah John, Marieke Breyne
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