Find out who won the Main Competition and the Green Dog Award.

The winning film of the WATCH DOCS 2022 Main Competition is THE HAMLET SYNDROME, dir. Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski!

"The main prize goes to a cinematic insight into a society that is currently fighting for survival against an all-out assault, a film that depicts this fight with an outstanding preemptive and performative power. The jury unanimously and with lightning speed decided to award Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosołowski"

The jury decided to honor two directors with Special Mentions:

- Matt Sarnecki for HOW TO KILL A JOURNALIST - a film that exposes the corruption of the populist governments of Eastern European countries, giving us an extremely timely warning.

- Jan Šikl for RECONSTRUCTION OF OCCUPATION - a timelessly relevant depiction of military violence and the social devastation that is carried with it through newly discovered archive footage

The Main Competition jury members were:

• Anna Zamecka - director and screenwriter.
• Joseph Cutts - curator and video installation artist
• Oleksiy Radynski - filmmaker living in Kyiv
• Max Tuula - Estonian film producer

The WATCH DOCS festival. Human Rights in Film awards another prize too - the Green Dog Award. It is a distinction for documentaries on ecology and climate change in the context of human rights. This year, the Green Dog Award goes to Karl Malakunas, director of DELIKADO!

In the jury's justification, we read: 

"The director of the film, Karl Malakunas, takes us to literally the front line of the unequal fight that the inhabitants of the Philippine island of Palawan are fighting to defend the forest and their place on Earth. Activists from the local community risk their lives opposing the forces of capital and oligarchs who cut down forests and flood them with asphalt roads, wanting to change the local "heaven on earth" into the center of the timber industry and mass tourism. (…) We want this award to be our tribute to all those who have fallen in this unequal fight." "Delikado" means dangerous and fragile at the same time. Hopefully, with this distinction, more of us will recognize the scale of the danger lying ahead, but also choose to act to protect the fragile. The moment couldn't have been better."

The Special Mention in the Green Competition was given to the film ALL OF OUR HEARTBEATS ARE CONNECTED THROUGH EXPLODING STARS dir. by Jennifer Rainsford for "a film that invites us to broaden our horizons, in times when the horizon - along with the vision of subsequent disasters and crises - seems to be narrowing. We appreciate the philosophical and therapeutic dimension of the film and the proof that poetics can also be a medium for our times".

The Green Competition jury members:

• Diana Lelonek - visual artist
• Dominika Lasota - climate activist
• Iwo Łoś - sociologist and activist.

Many congratulations to the winners!