Belarusian director Andrei Kutsila’s Letters From The Silenced Country has won the Golden Dove for feature-length documentary in the international competition at the 69th edition of DOK Leipzig, which wrapped on Saturday (October 30).
Letters From The Silenced Country follows three individuals who have endured imprisonment, repression, and exile by the Belarusian state: a father hiding from surveillance to avoid arrest and separation from his daughter; a former criminal investigator who leaves the system; and a student sentenced for protesting.
Czech Republic-based Filmotor handles world sales for the film, which made its world premiere earlier this year in the out-of-competition Venice Open section at the Venice Film Festival. It received the Golden Globes Impact prize for documentary.
Letters From The Silenced Country is produced by Miroslaw Dembinski for Poland’s DocEdu Foundation, Gregor Streiber and Friedemann Hottenbacher for Germany’s Inselfilm produktion, and Giedre Zickyte for Lithuania’s Moonmakers.
The DOK Leipzig Golden Dove award comes with a €10,000 prize sponsored by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR). It also automatically qualifies for consideration for the Academy Awards, subject to the Academy’s rules.
“Through the gripping, alternating experiences of men and women, some who speak, some who draw, some who fight, the film turns testimony into resistance,” said the DOK Leipzig jury.
The Silver Dove, awarded to an emerging director, went to Jordanian-Palestinian filmmaker Asmahan Bkerat for Concrete Land. The film follows a Palestinian Bedouin family in Jordan whose home is threatened by the construction of luxury villas around them.
Sponsored by 3sat, the award comes with a €6,000 prize. “A film by a young talent who knows where and how to place her camera, at a respectful, intimate distance from her subjects. She lets us see past the barriers of skin colour, class and prejudice, and understand what it means to forcefully give up one’s roots,” said the jury.
In the international competition for animated film, the €3,000 Golden Dove for feature-length film went to US filmmaker Chris Sullivan for The Orbit Of Minor Satellites. The film centres on a psychiatrist and his patient, who are transported to an abandoned, hallucinatory space station dating from the Cold War.
In the German competition for documentary film, the Golden Dove for feature-length film went to Transition by Peter Badel and Chris Wright. The film draws on the unpublished archives of filmmaker Thomas Heise, including fragments of what was intended to be his unfinished “Heimatfilm”.
The festival’s audience prize went to Lauren Dällenbach’s Nicole Nicole, a Swiss-French documentary about a 55-year-old woman living with her mother by Lake Geneva, and her growing desire for independence.
In total, 33 awards were presented at this year’s edition of DOK Leipzig, where 217 films and extended reality works from 61 countries were screened at venues around Leipzig.
DOK Leipzig winners 2026
Golden Dove feature-length film – international competition
Letters From The Silenced Country (Pol-Lith-Ger), dir. Andrei Kutsila
Golden Dove short film – international competition
They’re Here (US), dir. Laura Poitras, Rachel Lauren Mueller
Silver Dove feature length film – international competition documentary film
Concrete Land (Jor-Pal), dir. Asmahan Bkerat
Silver Dove short film – international competition documentary film
In memory of (Bel), dir. Florinda Ciucio
Golden Dove feature-length film – international competition animated film
The Orbit of Minor Satellites (US-Jap), dir. Chris Sullivan
Golden Dove short film – international competition animated film
Terminal (Port-Fr-Sp), dir. Alexandre Siqueira
Golden Dove feature-length film – German competition documentary film
Transition (Ger), dir. Peter Badel, Chris Wright
Golden Dove short film – German competition documentary film
Hello Debus (Ger), dir. Rosa Gocht
Golden Dove – audience competition
Nicole Nicole (Swi-Fr), dir. Lauren Dällenbach
Ver.di prize for solidarity, humanity and fairness
Free Zone (Ger), dir. Jasmine Alakari
DEFA sponsoring prize
My Brilliant Father (Ger), dir. Tete Hoffmann
MDR film prize
Letters From The Silenced Country (Pol-Lith-Ger), dir. Andrei Kutsila
Prize of the interreligious jury
Blossoming (Pol), dir. Kamila Serwicka
Prize of the interreligious jury – special mention
Bára – Diary of a Rockstar (Cz), dir. Helena Třeštíková
Young Eyes film award
Moving Sisters (Gr), dir. Christos Stefanou
Fipresci prize
Auber 89 (Fr-It), dir. Giuseppe Schillaci
Mephisto 97.6 award
When the Sea Was Calm (Geo), dir. Mamuka Tkeshelashvili
Gedanken-Aufschluss award
Last Round (Ger), dir. Janis Westphal
Film.land.sachsen prize for film culture in rural areas
Garden of Hope (Ger), dir. Dieter Schumann
Film prize Leipziger Ring
Union Town (US), dir. Barbara Kopple
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