Mohabat, the American documentary-maker James Longley’s film about a 12-year-old Afghan boy whose father is killed in a drone strike, has won the Opus Bonum award for best world documentary at the 30th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. The jury’s prize, which carries $10,000, was announced at the awards ceremony in the Czech town of Jihlava on the evening of Saturday 31 October. The festival opened on 23 October and runs until 1 November.
Key facts
- Opus Bonum main award: Mohabat (James Longley; US, Afghanistan), a world premiere at the festival; special mention to Songs from Within (Elvis A-Liang Lu; Taiwan)
- Best Central and East European documentary: Sacred Songs (Nona Giunashvili; France, Georgia). Best Visegrad-region documentary: Love Exposed (Filip Remunda; Czech Republic, Slovakia)
- First Lights, for debuts and second features: After the Rehearsal (Philipp Fröhlich; Burundi, Germany). The festival’s first FIPRESCI prize went to Journey (Eli Maene; DR Congo)
- Czech Joy: the best Czech documentary award was split between Glowing (Martin Páv) and Land of Fire (Nikola Klinger), from a record 27 films in competition. The audience award went to Aleš Pojar’s Mushroom Seconds
Ji.hlava bills itself as the largest festival of creative documentary in central and eastern Europe. It runs alongside DOK Leipzig, which also closes on 1 November and handed out 11 industry awards on 29 October, and both come just ahead of IDFA in Amsterdam in the autumn documentary calendar.
A boy, an orphanage and a village school
Mohabat is an 89-minute film in Pashto that premiered in the Opus Bonum competition. According to the festival’s synopsis, the boy and his two older brothers are left without a parent after their father’s death, which those around them treat as martyrdom. Mohabat is sent to an orphanage in the city, where many of the children have lost family to the war, before returning to his mountain village, school and the harvest. When his older brother Mawladdin, his closest protector, leaves for Europe through Iran, Mohabat has to learn to rely on himself.
The jury called the film “meticulously researched and exquisitely crafted”, and said it revealed rural life in Afghanistan under the Taliban by patiently watching the boy with his brothers and in the rhythm of his school days. Variety reported that the film was produced by Mohammad Sharif Hotak, Longley and Alex Gibney.
Longley, born in 1972, has spent his career filming civilian life in wartime. His Iraq in Fragments (2006) won the directing and cinematography awards for documentary at Sundance, and the festival notes that it and his short Sari’s Mother both earned Oscar nominations.
The rest of Opus Bonum
The Taiwanese director Elvis A-Liang Lu’s Songs from Within, about two brothers and gender non-conformity in a community governed by Indigenous and Christian norms, received the jury’s special mention, and its editor Yi-ling Huang took the editing prize. Nona Giunashvili’s Sacred Songs, a portrait of women of Georgia’s Kist community who perform Sufi spiritual songs, was named best Central and East European documentary.
Filip Remunda’s Love Exposed, in which the film’s editor confronts her father, the nude photographer Vlastimil Kula, won the Visegrad-region award, worth €3,000 (about $3,350) and backed by the International Visegrad Fund. Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez’s Life Is There (Egypt, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, UK) won the award for original approach. Ania Winiarska won best cinematography for her own Good Girls (Sweden, Finland), Diana Martínez the sound design award for Patricia Ayala Ruiz’s Colombian film 19th Floor, and the student jury chose Éric Baudelaire’s For the Moon.
Debuts, testimonies and the Czech competition
African films did well in First Lights, the section for first and second features. Philipp Fröhlich’s After the Rehearsal, a Burundi-Germany co-production the jury described as an absurdist investigation of the country, took the main award. Eli Maene’s Journey, which follows an artist-pastor and a dancer through Kinshasa, won both a special mention and the first FIPRESCI prize in the festival’s history. Jihyeon Oh’s Erotic Blossoms in a Dream (South Korea) won for original approach.
In Testimonies, Brydie O’Connor’s Barbara Forever (US) won the main award, with special mentions for Zainab Entezar’s 771 Days (Afghanistan), Sien Versteyhe’s The Sessions (Belgium) and Markéta Ekrt Válková’s Light It Before It Burns. Dominika Kováčová’s Elusiveness of Today (Belgium, Slovakia) won Fascinations, the experimental strand.
The Czech Joy jury declined to give a special mention and instead split its top prize between Martin Páv’s Glowing and Nikola Klinger’s Land of Fire, saying both looked beyond Czech subjects. Vít Klusák’s Anatomy of a Crash won the editing prize for Sebastian Kučkovský, and Dariia Kovalchuk’s Donbas within Reach was named best Czech short documentary.
The festival’s industry programme, the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum, also gave awards to projects in development. Karim Akalay’s Belgian project 6TM won the European award: post-production services from UPP worth €15,000 (about $16,800) and sound mixing from Soundsquare valued at an estimated €5,000 (about $5,600). Lindsey Sitz and Zan Gillies’s Searching for SmarterChild won the US award, $7,000 in cash in partnership with AmDocs. Euro conversions use the European Central Bank rate of 30 October, $1.1172 to the euro.
Full list of winners
Opus Bonum (best world documentary)
- Main award ($10,000): Mohabat (James Longley; US, Afghanistan)
- Special mention: Songs from Within (Elvis A-Liang Lu; Taiwan)
- Best Central and East European documentary: Sacred Songs (Nona Giunashvili; France, Georgia)
- Best documentary in the Visegrad region (€3,000): Love Exposed (Filip Remunda; Czech Republic, Slovakia)
- Original approach: Life Is There (Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez; Egypt, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, UK)
- Best editing: Yi-ling Huang, Songs from Within
- Best cinematography: Ania Winiarska, Good Girls (Sweden, Finland)
- Best sound design: Diana Martínez, 19th Floor (dir. Patricia Ayala Ruiz; Colombia)
- Student jury award: For the Moon (Éric Baudelaire; France)
First Lights (debut or second feature)
- Main award: After the Rehearsal (Philipp Fröhlich; Burundi, Germany)
- Special mention: Journey (Mobembo) (Eli Maene; DR Congo)
- Original approach: Erotic Blossoms in a Dream (Jihyeon Oh; South Korea)
- Best cinematography: Emma Boccanfuso, Saudades Eternas (Switzerland, France)
- Best sound design: Leinad Pájaro De la Hoz and Manuel Escorihuela, Voices from Neptune (Colombia, Germany)
- FIPRESCI prize: Journey (Eli Maene)
Czech Joy (best Czech documentary)
- Main award, shared: Glowing (Martin Páv) and Land of Fire (Nikola Klinger; Czech Republic, Germany)
- Original approach: Love Video Letter (Karolína Hovězáková)
- Best editing: Sebastian Kučkovský, Anatomy of a Crash (dir. Vít Klusák)
- Best sound design: Jakub Jurásek and Marek Buranovský, Wasteland Chronicles (dir. Viera Čákanyová, Barbora Sliepková, Lucia Kašová; Slovakia, Czech Republic)
- Best cinematography: Matěj Piňos, Light It Before It Burns (dir. Markéta Ekrt Válková)
- Best Czech short documentary: Donbas within Reach (Dariia Kovalchuk; Czech Republic, Ukraine)
- Student jury award: My Father from the Island Russia (Georgij Mežujev)
Testimonies
- Main award: Barbara Forever (Brydie O’Connor; US)
- Special mention, best film on politics: 771 Days (Zainab Entezar; Afghanistan)
- Special mention, best film on knowledge: The Sessions (Sien Versteyhe; Belgium)
- Special mention, best film on nature: Light It Before It Burns (Markéta Ekrt Válková; Czech Republic)
Fascinations (experimental)
- Best world experimental documentary: Elusiveness of Today (Dominika Kováčová; Belgium, Slovakia)
- Special mention: Identity and Transit Document No.4 (Rocío Salima; Cuba)
- Exprmntl.cz, best Czech experimental documentary: On the Peaks of All the Beech Mountains (Klára Trsková, Anežka Horová)
Other awards
- Audience award: Mushroom Seconds (Aleš Pojar; Czech Republic)
- Short Joy, best short documentary (online public vote): never been there, never. (Joseph Vitali; Philippines)
- Contribution to World Cinema: Helena Třeštíková and Trinh T. Minh-ha
Ji.hlava New Visions Forum (industry awards)
- New Visions Award, European project (UPP services worth €15,000 plus Soundsquare sound mix valued at about €5,000): 6TM (dir. Karim Akalay, prod. Walid Bekhti; Belgium)
- New Visions Award, US project ($7,000 cash, with AmDocs): Searching for SmarterChild (dir. Lindsey Sitz, Zan Gillies, prod. Erin Williams-Weir; US, Canada)
- Cannes Docs – Marché du Film Award: Iridescence (dir. Dominika Kováčová, Kilhan Wittock; Slovakia, Belgium, Italy)
- DAE Award: Monument of Revolution (dir. Mladen Ivanović; Montenegro, Croatia)
- #Docs Connect Taskovski training award and Jacob Burns Film Center residency: Planet A (dir. Emelie Mahdavian; UK)
- Docs by the Sea Award: Daughters of the Pit (dir. Anshul Chauhan; Japan)
- EURODOC Award (training and membership valued at €2,000, about $2,200) and Bratislava Industry Days Award: If Only the Pines Could Speak (dir. Yelyzaveta Myshkalenko; Ukraine)
- Lightdox award: Male Fantasies (dir. Max Bowens; US)
- Meditalents Residency Award: The 13th Fish (dir. Sara Stijović; Montenegro)
- Sheffield DocFest Networking Award: A Spectre is Haunting Europe (dir. Robo Mihály; Slovakia, Czech Republic)
- RAFF Residency Award: Words We Never Say (dir. Agnieszka Zwiefka; Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Spain)
Our reading
Ji.hlava’s main jury went for a patient observational film from Afghanistan rather than a formal experiment, and the top two Opus Bonum prizes went to films made far from Europe. With winners from Burundi, DR Congo, Georgia and Colombia across the sections, this year’s list echoes Seminci, which gave its Golden Spike to a France-Senegal-Guinea-Bissau film, and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, where Georgia’s Guria won best film. For Mohabat, a world premiere with a festival prize attached is a strong start; its next festival and distribution moves have not been announced.
Sources
- Ji.hlava IDFF, Awarded films and other awards of the 30th Ji.hlava IDFF (31 October 2026)
- Ji.hlava IDFF film page: Mohabat
- Ji.hlava IDFF, Opus Bonum section (prize terms)
- Ji.hlava IDFF, Industry Awards 2026
- Novinky.cz, Festival dokumentů Ji.hlava vyhrál film o sirotkovi z Afghánistánu (31 October 2026)
- Variety, Alex Gibney-produced ‘Mohabat’ wins at Ji.hlava (31 October 2026)