Five films will compete for the inaugural FIPRESCI Documentary Grand Prix. The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) announced today that 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Fiume O Morte!, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Orwell: 2+2=5, and The Perfect Neighbor as the finalists for the first edition of the critics’ spotlight on documentary film. This year’s winner will be named at Poland’s Millennium Docs Against Gravity in May.
2000 Meters to Andriivka, directed by Mystslav Chernov, takes audiences along for a harrowing trek with Ukrainian civilian soldiers as they seek to reclaim a village from Russian invaders. Igor Bezinović’s Fiume O Morte!, meanwhile, offers an inventive reclamation of history as present-day citizens of Rijeka, Croatia revisit the city’s past as a free state unsuccessfully occupied by dictator Gabriele D’Annunzio, whom the citizens reinterpret through performance. Mr. Nobody Against Putin, directed by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin, draws upon the latter’s defiance of Putin’s propaganda campaign through school curricula.
Similarly, Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 explores the contemporary resonance of the British author’s prescient exploration of propaganda and the panopticon, while Geeta Gandbhir appropriates the power of the all-seeing-eye in The Perfect Neighbor to tell a chilling story about a community under siege, seen through police bodycams, dashboard lenses, and surveillance footage.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin and The Perfect Neighbor are currently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, while 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Fiume O Morte!, and Putin were all submitted represent Ukraine, Croatia, and Denmark, respectively, in the Oscar race for Best International Feature.
The international organization launched the FIPRESCI Grand Prix in 1999, naming the best film of the year as voted on by affiliated film critics worldwide, but no documentary has ever won in the history of the prize. This year’s inaugural documentary prize considers all docs that screened in eligible festivals in 2025.
