A Fox Under A Pink Moon

Source: IDFA

‘A Fox Under A Pink Moon’

Films by Iranian filmmakers have won the two top prizes at at the 2025 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). 

Mehrdad Oskouei’s A Fox Under A Pink Moon,  won the €15,000 best film prize in the international competition, while Morteza Ahmadvand and Firouzeh Khosrovani’s Past Future Continuous, was presented with the €15,000 best film prize of the Envision competition, for films of “more daring form”.

A Fox Under A Pink Moon is about a young female artist, the director’s niece, an Afghan woman from Iran but now living in Turkey. It is one of several documentaries at the festival that use animation. 

CAT&Docs is handling international sales. 

Meanwhile, Past Future Continuous is about an Iranian woman living in exile in the US and using security cameras to stay in touch with her ageing parents back in Tehran. Taskovski Films is handling sales.  

International competition

The €5,000 award for best directing went to Tamar Kalandadze and Julien Pebrel for The Kartli Kingdom. Sold by Square Eyes, the Georgia-produced documentary is an observational film set within a vast Soviet-era former sanatorium that became home to 200 displaced families following the outbreak of war in the Abkhazia region in the 1990s.

Lucas Gallo’s December, an archive-driven documentary about the economic crisis in Argentina that began in late 2001 and led to Weimar-era-like hyper-inflation and social unrest, won the best editing prize of the international competition. 

 Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s Silent Flood, set in an Amish-like community whose quiet everyday life in a remote part of western Ukraine is turned upside down by the  Russian invasion, won the award for best cinematography.

There was also a special mention for US director Katy Scoggin’s Flood.

The international competition jury was comprised of Eric Hynes, Isabelle Glachant, Maya Daisy Hawke, Michel K. Zongo, and Myriam Sassine. 

Envision

Holy Destructors by Lithuanian director Aistė Žegulytė-Zapolska won the €5,000 best directing award in the Envision competition. The film about micro-fungi takes a metaphorical look at how mould eats away at every aspect of human life and memory.

Miguel Week’s Amilcar, about the Guinea-Bissau-born freedom fighter, poet and revolutionary Amilcar Cabral won the award for outstanding artistic contribution in the Envision strand. It is being sold by Odd Slice Films,

Complete audience figures are yet to be confirmed but the festival expects to reach a total of 255,000 visits across all its activities.

IDFA 2025 winners 

International Competition

Best film
A Fox Under a Pink Moon
Dir: Mehrdad Oskouei

Best directing
The Kartli Kingdom
Dir: Tamar Kalandadze & Julien Pebrel

Best editing
December
Dir: Lucas Gallo

Best cinematography
Silent Flood
Dir: Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk

Special Mention
Flood
Dir: Katy Scoggin

Envision Competition

Best film
Past Future Continuous
Dir: Morteza Ahmadvand & Firouzeh Khosrovani

Best directing
Holy Destructors
Dir: Aistė Žegulytė

Outstanding artistic contribution
Amílcar
Dir: Miguel Eek

IDFA DocLab – Immersive Non-Fiction

IDFA DocLab award for immersive non-fiction
Feedback VR, un musical antifuturista
Dir: Claudix Vanesix for Collective AMiXR

Special mention  
Under the Same Sky
Dir: Khalil Ashawi

First Feature Competition 

Best first feature
Paikar
Dir: Dawood Hilmandi

Special mention – Best first feature
The Kartli Kingdom
Dir: Tamar Kalandadze & Julien Pebrel

Dutch Competition

Best Dutch film
My Word Against Mine
Dir: Maasja Ooms

Special mention – Best Dutch film
Paikar
Dir: Dawood Hilmandi

ReFrame Award

Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame award
Remake
Dir: Ross McElwee

Special mention – ReFrame award
The Memory of Butterflies
Dir: Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski

FIPRESCI award 

Paikar
Dir: Dawood Hilmandi