‘Deuses de pedra’ by Iván Castiñeiras and ‘Monólogo colectivo’ by Jessica Sarah Rinland win at Documenta Madrid 2025
> ‘Deuses de pedra’ by Iván Castiñeiras and ‘Monólogo colectivo’ by Jessica Sarah Rinland win at Documenta Madrid 2025
> The CineZeta Youth Jury Award went to Deuses de pedra by Iván Castiñeiras — the film’s second accolade.
> The Corte Final section and the Freak Agency Distribution Award were both granted to Atlas de la desaparición by Manuel Correa.
> The Audience Award for Best National Film went to Capitolio Vs. Capitolio by Javier Horcajada, while Best International Film was awarded to What We Ask of a Statue Is that It Doesn't Move by Daphné Hérétakis.
> The festival closed with the screening of two rare gems: El Rastro by Javier Aguirre and the video archives of neurologist and amateur filmmaker Alberto Portera, accompanied by live music from Abel Hernández Pozuelo.
Documenta Madrid, the International Film Festival of the Madrid City Council, organized by the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport, announced the winning films of its 22nd edition this evening at Cineteca Madrid’s Azcona theater. The awards ceremony was led by the Programming Committee — Paola Buontempo, Javier H. Estrada, Ruth M. Somalo, and Florencia de Mugica — accompanied by Cineteca Madrid’s Artistic Director, Luis E. Parés, and the juries of the competition sections.
Eight films were awarded by the juries, chosen from 13 entries in the National Competition, 12 in the International Competition, and four in Corte Final, selected from the 1,604 films submitted from 125 countries.
National Competition: Best Film and Fugas Awards
The jury — Dario Oliveira (Porto/Post/Doc), Frédéric Maire (Cinémathèque Suisse), and Alejandra Trelles (Festival Cinematográfico Internacional del Uruguay) — awarded Deuses de pedra by Iván Castiñeiras (Spain, Portugal, France, 2025) the Jury Prize for Best National Film (€10,000), praising its “poetic narrative, empathetic portrayal of its characters and territory, and its sensitive depiction of time and transformation, capturing a current social reality.”
The same jury gave the National Fugas Award for innovation and boundary-pushing (€5,000) to Recuerdos para el que por mí pregunte by Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez (Spain, 2025), “for honoring victims of Francoism through their personal letters, imbuing individual destinies with a collective dimension.”
A Special Mention went to Un dragón de cien cabezas by Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado (Spain, 2025), “for achieving an almost fantastical dimension through the treatment of image and sound.”
Deuses de pedra also won the CineZeta Youth Jury Award, granted by the CineZeta program that brings young people into film curation at Cineteca Madrid. The jury highlighted the film “for portraying rural exodus with commitment and sensitivity.”
International Competition: Best Film and Fugas Awards
The Jury Prize for Best International Film (€10,000) went to Monólogo colectivo by Jessica Sarah Rinland (Argentina, UK, 2024). Jurors — Tania Pardo (CA2M), filmmaker Andrei Ujică, and last year’s winner Daniel Mann — praised the film’s ability to “suggest the impossibility of dialogue between humans and animals, while evoking subtle communication within an Argentine zoo.”
The International Fugas Award (€5,000) went to Razeh-del by Maryam Tafakory (Iran, Italy, UK, 2024) for “its poetic reimagining of archival footage through innovative editing.”
A Special Mention was given to 7 Promenades avec Mark Brown by Vincent Barré and Pierre Creton (France, 2024).
Corte Final Award
In Corte Final, the section for films in the late stages of editing or production, the jury — filmmaker Rafael Alberola, distributor María Oliva, and curator Luisa Espino — awarded the €4,000 prize to Atlas de la desaparición by Manuel Correa (Spain, Norway), “for shedding light on a buried chapter of history and doing so with research rigor, artistic vision, and cross-disciplinary innovation.” The film also received the Freak Agency Distribution Award, valued at €6,000.
Audience Awards – Cineteca Madrid
Audience members voted for their favorite films after screenings. The Cineteca Madrid Audience Award for International Competition (€1,000) went to What We Ask of a Statue Is that It Doesn't Move by Daphné Hérétakis (France, Greece, 2024), and the National Competition Audience Award (€1,000) went to Capitolio Vs. Capitolio by Javier Horcajada (Spain, 2025).
Festival closes with rare screenings and live music
The closing event featured two cinematic treasures. First, El Rastro (Javier Aguirre, 1966), restored by the ECAM, offered a portrait of a Madrid neighborhood just before the director’s feature film career and anti-cinema ventures began.
Also presented was El secreto de Alberto Portera (David Plaza Sagrado, 2025), featuring rare footage by neurologist and amateur filmmaker Alberto Portera of artists from the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, restored by Fundación Juan March. The screening was accompanied by a live score from Abel Hernández Pozuelo.
Documenta Madrid 2025
The 22nd edition of Documenta Madrid ran from May 6 to 11, reaffirming its commitment to auteur documentary, formal experimentation, and critical thought. This year’s focus was on archival imagery as a generator of memory and heritage, and on cinema’s potential as a tool of resistance, historical revision, and collective creation.
Organized by Cineteca Madrid, the festival reaffirmed its status as a key hub for contemporary documentary and non-fiction cinema, with screenings at its main venue and across Filmoteca Española, Museo Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, ECAM, and Fundación Casa de México/UNAM-España.
The festival was supported by ECAM, Madrid Film Office, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), the Romanian Cultural Institute, UNAM-España, the Embassy of Switzerland, Fundación Juan March, and Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, among others.