For the first time in the history of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the winner of both the Grand Prix and the Audience Award is the same film – The Good Daughter, directed by Spanish filmmaker Júlia de Paz Solvas.
For the first time in the history of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the winner of both the Grand Prix and the Audience Award is the same film – The Good Daughter, directed by Spanish filmmaker Júlia de Paz Solvas.
At the Award Ceremony of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), awards were presented to the winners of the festival’s six competition programmes, Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event and PÖFF’s youth and children’s film sub-festival Just Film.
OFFICIAL SELECTION COMPETITION
Jury: Teona Strugar Mitevska, Roberto Schaefer, Debra McGuire, Ingo Fliess and Nomuunzul Turmunkh
Grand Prix for the Best Film (Grant of 20,000 euros from the city of Tallinn, shared by the Director and Producer): The Good Daughter, director Júlia de Paz Solvas, producers Sergio Grobas and Stefan Schmitz
Jury comment: "This film is a strong and emotional drama about a teenage girl dealing with family conflict. It handles difficult themes with care, making the story feel real. The lead performance is honest and sensitive, helping the audience understand her feelings. The simple cinematography and editing effectively support the story without detracting from it. Overall, the film shows family struggles in a realistic and meaningful way."
Best Director (Grant of 5,000 euros from Alexela) Ali Vatansever, Lifelike (Türkiye, Greece, Romania)
Jury comment: "Powerful and poignant, with great sensitivity, the director paints an emotional picture of the inner life of the main character by masterfully navigating between reality and the virtual world. Therefore, reevaluating our understanding of reality. The freedom he gives himself in the way he uses the cinematographic form only adds to the experience he offers.
Best Cinematography (Grant of 1,000 euros from Cramo): Yutaka Yamazaki, The Imaginary Dog and the Lying Cat (Japan)
Jury comment: "The serene cinematography of Yutaka Yamazaki combined with the entire production’s design and visual sensibilities, takes the viewer through a family's troubled universe with a simplicity that counters that turmoil. The exquisite compositions, restrained camera movement and colour palette are classically Japanese and take us into a complete world where the problems of the characters are able to be expressed without exaggeration or obvious tropes. It is elegant and calming, creating a landscape that masks the inner turmoil and longings for emotional resolution, allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks."
Best Script: Ståle Stein Berg, No Comment (Norway)
Jury comment: "The script stands out for its clever, sharp, and highly engaging take on political chaos. With crisp dialogue and fast-moving scenes, it turns a government scandal into a smart and entertaining story that keeps the audience fully invested. Each moment is tightly crafted, allowing the plot to unfold smoothly without losing momentum."
Best Actress: Kiara Arancibia, The Good Daughter (Spain)
Jury comment: "The lead performance shows deep inner conflict in a clear and believable way. The actor expresses fear, loyalty, confusion, and strength without overacting, which gives the film much of its emotional power. Each scene feels real and personal, pulling the audience into the character’s world. This performance is a big reason why the film stays memorable and emotionally strong."
Best Actor: Aladdin Detlefsen, Kanji Tsuda, The Frog and the Water (Germany)
Jury comment: "We were mesmerised by the humanity of this film, and by the profound human understanding between the two main characters, by breaking the language barrier and within silence they danced throughout the story, slowly enriching their understanding of one another. Their performances are a reminder that inclusion and equality are the way of the world."
Best Original Score: Erdem Helvacıoğlu, Lifelike (Türkiye, Greece, Romania)
Jury comment: "Erdem Helvacıoğlu’s score is sparse and minimalistic - that alone makes it special. Used only at key moments, the music first appears within a plot-relevant game, then gradually takes on a life of its own. With simple swelling octaves and occasional triads, Helvacıoğlu creates a subtle but powerful sound world that draws us into the emotional journey of father and son and gently holds us there."
Best Production Design: Chris Richmond and David Hand, Think of England (United Kingdom)
Jury comment: "This is an audacious film, a testament that with little means, miraculous solutions are possible and all one needs is creativity, innovation and collaboration. A stark reminder that cinema is first and foremost a visual art form!"
FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION
Jury: Nina Paskowitz, Giancarlo Nasi, Ilango Ram
Best Film Award: Hercules Falling, (Denmark)
Director Christian Bonke, producers Amalie Lyngbo Quist and Sebastian Weyland
Jury comment: “Every war ends sooner or later, but some scars stay forever. A soldier fighting an emotional war within himself to reconnect with his family, a battle more painful than the one he left behind. This deeply moving film shows the inner struggle in a brutally honest and realistic manner.”
Best Director: Samuel Abrahams, Lady (United Kingdom)
Jury comment: “For Lady Sian Clifford creates a world that’s sharp, funny, and surprisingly sincere. With bold tonal swings and absolute command of the craft, the film exposes the dark and the light of a fading aristocracy, our filmmaker’s unapologetically oversized ego, and the unexpected friendship that emerges from the messy, beautiful chaos of making a movie. It’s fearless, it’s playful, and it pushes the genre with absolute confidence.“
Special Prize for Best editing: Jan Van Der Weken, Sunday Ninth, dir. Kat Steppe (Belgium)
Jury comment: "Sunday Ninth, a first-time Black Nights competition entry from Belgium and winner of the Special Jury Prize for Best Editing, pulls us straight into the messy, human experience of a man living with Alzheimer’s. Jumping between past, present, and a non-linear timeline, the film lets us feel his confusion, his violent outbursts, and the childhood wounds that never left him. Yet through this chaos, we watch him connect with a surprising new life… one in which he faces a lifetime of pain, discovering new strength, independence, and even love.”
Special Prize for Best Production Design: Easy Girl, dir. Hille Norden (Germany)
Jury comment: “This film creates a world that is visually bold yet emotionally unguarded. Its production design captures the tension between teenage freedom and the spaces that confine it; the make-up and hair reveal the cracks beneath confidence; and the costumes trace a shift from playfulness to vulnerability. Together, they create a world that feels immediate, unsettling and profoundly true.”
CRITICS' PICKS COMPETITION
Jury: Dechen Roder, Thomas Schultze and Jean-Baptiste Babin
Best Film Award: China Sea, dir. Jurgis Matulevičius, producers Ieva Cern and Stasys Baltakis (Lithuania, Taiwan, Poland, Czechia)
Jury comment: “Another story of redemption, which showed us a very specific world in a way we had not experienced before: The film takes us into the broken existence of a former Mixed Martial Arts champion who after a fall from grace is trying to put his life back together, trying to be better in a world that will not let him. We were transfixed by this harsh and uncompromising and at the same time deeply poetic and human journey full of astonishing images that still haunt us.”
Best Director Award: Matías Szulanski, A Summer Tale (Argentina)
Jury comment: “What a blast of energy: The film lasts 80 minutes – and not for one second this relentless and pounding expereince lets its audience come up for air, take a single breath: Thanks to the masterful direction you are one with this descent into hell, the survival story of a sicario at his wits end on the steets of an Argentinean metropolis, reeling from societal and economical rot. An astonishing work of art.“
Special mention to Ali Nasirian Oh, What Happy Days, dir. Homayoun Ghanizadeh (Iran, France, Canada)
Jury comment: “We were overwhelmed and smitten by the formal rigour and inventiveness of Oh, What Happy Days from Homayoun Ghanizadeh, whose approach lets us see the faces and acting of some of the greatest Iranian actors of our time differently, among them Golshifteh Farahani, Navid Mohammadzadeh and Payman Maadi, as well as famous artist and director Shirin Neshat. But it is the presence of the legendary Ali Nasirian that towers over it all, 91 years old, one more performance that feels like it encompasses a whole life dedicated to his art and craft.”
Special mention to Eeva Mägi, Mo Papa (Estonia)
Jury comment: “It was the first film we saw in this year’s Critics Picks – and it stayed with us for the whole festival. The astonishing camera work, the wonderful ensemble work of the actors and the clear-eyed, incisive and empathetic direction are true standouts. We could not take our eyes off this film that made us see Tallinn with different eyes.”
REBELS WITH A CAUSE COMPETITION
Jury: Ali Asgari, Rogan Graham and Alicia Reginato
Best Film Award: The Baronesses, dir. Nabil Ben Yadir, Mokhtaria Badaoui, producers Benoît Roland and Nabil Ben Yadir (Belgium, Luxembourg, France)
Jury comment: “The film is as rebellious in form as it is in storytelling. We delighted in witnessing the evolution of an older woman on a journey from obedient to rebellious, using art to reclaim her sense of identity in the face of familial and governmental judgment. With specificity and confidence, this co-direction between mother and son seamlessly merges surrealism with tactile familiarity, centring the unsung rebels we may fail to notice in our own communities.”
Best Director: Adrian Sitaru Blindsight (Romania,Türkiye)
Jury comment: “This film is a surreal exploration of memories that drifts between reality and fantasy. In this film, the director masterfully uses an experimental cinematic approach to portray the story of a family and their journey through time and memories. In this journey, the camera works like a witness, and it transitions between characters and sometimes blinks to create a visual language that breaks, all the time, the line between reality and illusion.”
Best Short Film: Pay Day, dir. Päivi Hirsiaho (Finland)
Jury comment: “As a collective jury ripe with differences and commonalities, this wonderful short film entered and impacted all three of us through its pure beauty, form, and content. Perhaps that is its rebellion. PAY DAY is about many things, and also simply about a singular experience, told in a mesmerizing way.”
BALTIC FILM COMPETITION
Jury: Gözde Kural, Montse Triola and Alexandre Goberidze
Best Baltic Film Award: The Visitor, dir. Vytautas Katkus, producers Marija Razgute, Brigita Beniusyte, Elisa Fernanda Pirir, Anna-Maria Kantarius and Mimmi Spång (Lithuania, Norway, Sweden)
Jury comment: “There are films that look towards the future. This debut is definitely one of them. While the film's narrative reflects themes such as loneliness and alienation, in its form the film promises openness to the unknown and to the new ways of filmmaking. We hope that this promise will be kept.”
Best Director: Gabriele Urbonaite, Renovation (Lithuania, Latvia, Belgium)
Jury comment: “A measured and thoughtful debut that explores the human journey of transformation, offering a nuanced portrayal of an individual’s existential passage toward renewal.”
Best Baltic Producer for Co-production: Becoming, director Zhannat Alshanova, producers Jean-Laurent Csinidis, Denis Vaslin and Marija Razgutė (France, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Lithuania, Sweden)
Jury comment: For their visionary support of emerging talent and their vital role as producers in bringing the director’s unique artistic voice to the screen.
DOC@PÖFF INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
Jury: Tania El Khoury, Daniel Abma and Marianne Ostrat
Best Film Award: Days of Wonder, dir. Karin Pennanen (Finland, Denmark, Norway)
Jury comment: “A particular film that unfolds gradually, inviting us on a personal journey that is both artistically challenging and deeply emotional. A unique work, it combines different artistic materials — from archive footage to animation, music, and sound recordings — in a sensitive and beautiful way. A heartfelt tribute to a deceased loved one.”
Best Cinematography Award: Max Golomidov, Edge Of The Night, dir. Vladimir Loginov (Estonia)
Jury comment: “The visual language of this film transforms the city into a living, breathing organism - an immersive nocturnal world of its own. The camera captures the city's pulse and the soul of its inhabitants. It transcends documentation of Tallinn and crafts an ode to the night that is as intimate as it is electrifying.”
Jury Special Prize: Raisa Răzmeriță, Electing Ms Santa, dir. Raisa Răzmeriță (Moldova, Romania)
Jury comment: "Over seven years, we follow the joyful Elena on her journey to become a mayoral candidate in her Moldovan village. This intimate portrait is powerful and full of empathy, showing her courage, doubt, and determination. A vibrant woman faces a patriarchal society — and keeps shining."
DOC@PÖFF BALTIC COMPETITION
Jury: Ana Fernandez Saiz, Pamela Cohn and Koen Suidgeest
Best Film Award: Holy Destructors, dir. Aistė Žegulytė (Lithuania, France, Latvia)
Jury comment: "Our jury awards this film for its courageous and innovative approach. Artfully weaving the marvels of the secret universe of the soul and scientific exploration, the director utilizes unorthodox audiovisual language to play with our perspectives and perceptions on the undeniable process of decay and regeneration. She also challenges our often predictable ways of objectifying cinematic images by using the quiet process of precise and loving restoration as a powerful metaphor for decay, memory, and transformation. In the process, she encourages us to see moulds and microorganisms, crypts and frescoes in a fresh light."
Jury Special Prize: My Family and Other Clowns, dir. Heilika Pikkov, Liina Särkinen (Estonia)
Jury comment: "Our jury recognizes this film for how it unveils the harsh undercurrent of a seemingly cohesive family that, in reality, is being held together by its fragile eldest daughter while the parents focus on their own creative ambitions as clowns performing for the entertainment of other people’s children. This documentary, shot over many years combines the directors’ compassionate gaze with the use of intimate archival home videos, and asks us to give thought to the devastating cost of a childhood cut short."
**NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asia Cinema) JURY PRIZE **
Jury: Tsengel Davaasambu, Santanu Ganguly and Teet Kask
The Muralist, dir. Sengedorj Janchivdorj (Mongolia)
Jury comment: "The film beautifully captures the balance between professional and personal life against the stunning backdrop of Mongolia. It reflects on preserving love, the responsibility we bear toward the next generation, and the values they inherit—ultimately underscoring the enduring power of unconditional love as a guiding moral force."
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF FILM CRITICS (FIPRESCI) AWARD
Jury: Jason Gorber, Alexander Meljan and Martin Oja
Hercules Falling, dir. Christian Bonke (Denmark)
Jury comment: "Not all the scars caused by conflict are visible, and as this tale admirably demonstrates, the wounds to one’s humanity often cut even deeper than those to one’s flesh. For its documentary-like precision, its captivating and emotionally impactful storyline, its precise staging and assured direction of both professionals and non-actors alike, it’s astonishing that this powerful film is the work of a first-time feature director."
AUDIENCE AWARD
The Good Daughter, dir. Júlia de Paz Solvas (Spain)
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Juozas Budraitis and Janno Põldma
HONORARY AWARD
Jessica Hausner
BRUNO O'YA YOUNG ACTOR SCHOLARSHIP
Ursel Tilk