"Kabul: Between Prayers" wins the 25th WATCH DOCS IFF

This year, 12 outstanding documentary films competed for the WATCH DOCS Award. The Main Competition jury consisted of Emi Buchwald, Niklas Engstrøm, Andrej Kuciła, Tue Steen Müller, and Laura van Halsema. The Award for Best Film goes to Kabul Between Prayers by Aboozar Amini.

The jury of the main competition was very impressed with the outstanding selection of films that took us to many different realities from a wide variety of perspectives and visual languages. So first we want to thank all the filmmakers and also the festival for bringing their work together and allowing us to watch and discuss them together.

Now while we agreed that there is something inherently strange comparing and ranking documentaries, that are different expressions of a world in crisis on so many levels, we were unanimous in our decision which film to give the award for best film to.

This film invites the viewer to a world rarely seen from within. A film that with precision, compassion and without judgment shows the human faces of an ideology and a regime not typically associated with vulnerability and ambiguity. A film that carefully composes each frame, that is as much about what is in front of us as what is left out. We were transported to an unknown and sinister world, in a subtle and moving way. The filmmaker is in full command of his material and shows his exceptional cinematic talent in every frame and scene.