'Evidence' by Lee Anne Schmitt and 'Krakatoa' by Carlos Casas, winners of Documenta Madrid 2026
- Krakatoa by Carlos Casas has won the Jury Prize for Best National Film, and Evidence by Lee Anne Schmitt has won the Prize for Best International Film.
- Atlas de la desaparición by Manuel Correa and The Recce by Daniel Mann have been awarded the National and International Fugas Prizes, respectively.
- The CineZeta Young Jury Prize has been awarded to No hay camino by Luciana Espinoza Hoempler.
- The project Escribir nuestro nombre y seguir by Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez and Lili Albornoz has won both the Corte Final Award and the Agencia Freak Distribution Award.
- Atlas de la desaparición also received the Audience Award for Best National Film, while the Audience Award for Best International Film went to El príncipe de Nanawa by Clarisa Navas.
- The National and International juries highlighted two films with Special Mentions: OAO by Rocío Mesa and Lloyd Wong, Unfinished by Lesley Loksi Chan, respectively.
- During the festival's closing ceremony, the film Vial Matadero by filmmaker Juan Cavestany, made specifically for this edition, was premiered.
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 23rd edition tonight in the Azcona Hall at Cineteca Madrid. The awards were presented by the Programming Committee—composed of Florencia de Mugica, Nuria Cubas, Irene Castro, and Pablo Caldera—accompanied by Luis Parés, artistic director of Cineteca Madrid, and the members of the competitive juries.
The jury awarded eight films, chosen from the 12 titles in the National Competition, the 14 in the International Competition, and the four final projects—all selected from the 1,650 films submitted to this year's call for entries, which saw participation from nearly 20 countries.
National Competition: Best Film and Fugas
The National Competition jury, composed of Hélder Beja (director of Doclisboa), Maite Conesa (director of the Filmoteca de Castilla y León), and Iris Martín-Peralta (curator and film producer), awarded the Jury Prize for Best National Film, with a cash prize of 10,000 euros, to Krakatoa (Spain, UK, France, 2026) by Carlos Casas. In their deliberation, the jury decided to grant the award to this work "for staging a cinematic journey that traverses the boundaries of non-fiction with great technical and aesthetic daring. The film gives form to a narrative anchored in mythological tradition and adventure storytelling, reclaiming the movie theater as the indisputable space to reach the limit of sensory experience beyond the visual."
The same jury awarded the National Fugas Prize for innovation and the willingness to cross boundaries, with a cash prize of 5,000 euros, to the film Atlas de la desaparición (Spain, Norway, 2026) by Manuel Correa, "for its vocation to shed light, through the most innovative techniques of scientific and architectural research, on a known reality that remains hidden and silenced, crossing the borders of historical memory to place it at the forefront of social debate." Furthermore, the jury granted a Special Mention to OAO (Spain, 2026) by Rocío Mesa.
Finally, the film No hay camino (Spain, Peru, 2026) by Luciana Espinoza Hoempler received the CineZeta Young Jury Prize, awarded by members of this program, which brings together young programmers for their first experience in cinematic curatorship at Cineteca Madrid. The jury for this category chose to award this work "for its daring thematic approach and portrait of a reality that often goes unnoticed by many, and for the astute integration of new languages and contemporary forms of communication into its narrative."
International Competition: Best Film and Fugas
The Jury Prize for Best International Film, with a cash prize of 10,000 euros, went to Evidence (USA, 2025) by Lee Anne Schmitt. The jury—composed of Jessica Sarah Rinland (Argentine-British artist and filmmaker, winner of the previous edition), Laura García-Lorca (president of the Federico García Lorca Foundation), and Christophe Piette (programmer at CINEMATEK, the Royal Film Archive of Belgium)—highlighted the film for "its marked authorship, connecting the intimate and the familiar with its global consequences, for its profound research into the understanding of this process, and for its poetic cinematography."
The same jury awarded the International Fugas Prize, with a cash prize of 5,000 euros, to the film The Recce (UK, Germany, 2026) by Daniel Mann, in recognition of its innovation and willingness to cross boundaries, "for its exposure of cinematic ethics using contemporary resources." The jury also granted a Special Mention to Lloyd Wong, Unfinished (Canada, 2025) by Lesley Loksi Chan.
Corte Final and Agencia Freak Awards
In Corte Final, the section aimed at films in the advanced editing stage of Spanish production or co-production, the jury was composed of Rocío Cabrera (documentary producer), Aimar Arriola (head of the Intermediae program at Matadero Madrid), and Joan Sala (programmer and deputy director of the Atlántida Mallorca Film Fest). This jury awarded the Corte Final Prize, with a cash prize of 4,000 euros, to Escribir nuestro nombre y seguir (Spain, Peru, 2026) by Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez and Lili Albornoz.
In addition, this film won the Agencia Freak Distribution Award, which covers the costs of creating the winning film's projection files, as well as its distribution at festivals for two years, starting from the moment of its completion. The coverage provided by this award is valued at 6,000 euros.
Cineteca Madrid Audience Award
The audience, through their votes in the theater following the screenings, contributed to the festival's awards by choosing their favorite national and international films. The Cineteca Madrid Audience Award in the International Competition, with a cash prize of 1,000 euros, went to El príncipe de Nanawa (Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, 2025) by Clarisa Navas. The Cineteca Madrid Audience Award in the National Competition, also with a cash prize of 1,000 euros, was awarded to the film that also won the National Fugas Prize, Atlas de la desaparición (Spain, Norway, 2026) by Manuel Correa.
Closing Premiere: Vial Matadero by Juan Cavestany
At the festival's closing ceremony, the film Vial Matadero premiered. This unreleased film by filmmaker Juan Cavestany was made specifically for this edition and produced by Matadero Madrid and Cineteca Madrid. The film proposes a look at Matadero as a symbolic space of urban and social transformation, turning this cultural enclave into a mirror of the city's changes.
Documenta Madrid 2026
Documenta Madrid is the International Film Festival of the Madrid City Council and one of the main spaces for exhibition, reflection, and creation regarding non-fiction cinema in Spain. In its 23rd edition, the festival was structured around the concept of "Taking the Pulse" (Tomar el pulso), a thematic axis that champions the tradition of direct cinema and its capacity to immediately record social and cultural reality.
Organized by Cineteca Madrid, the festival showcased its parallel programming at various venues across the city in addition to Cineteca, including Filmoteca Española, La Casa Encendida, ECAM, and the Goethe-Institut, consolidating its role as a meeting point for filmmakers, professionals, and the public.
More information: documentamadrid.com
More information: documentamadrid.com
Press contact:
← Go back to press