31/03/2025 - US director James Benning’s documentary bags the Grand Prize in the International Competition while Sophie Bredier’s movie scoops Best French Film

Sophie Bredier, who won the Best French Film Prize for Lumière de mes yeux (© Lea Rener)

Little Boy by James Benning has walked away with the Grand Prize at the 47th Cinéma du Réel International Documentary Film Festival, where the US director previously triumphed in 2018 with L. Cohen. Unveiled in the Berlinale Forum and produced by the director himself, Benning’s new opus is the companion film to American Dreams (Lost and Found) (1984) whose two-sided approach he’s borrowed for the present movie, along with his trademark style characterised by very long static shots. The film shows us four pairs of hands belonging to eight male characters (from 8 years old and up) as they paint model railway kits, with images of each of the completed models then accompanied by historical speeches (delivered by Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton, to name but three) which illustrate the politics which have punctuated the director’s existence to date.

The feature film jury (composed of Lucile Hazihalilovic, Sévérine Ballon, Erika Balsom and Carlos Muguiro) awarded its international prize to two British co-productions on a tie-break basis: Collective Monologue [+see also:
film review
interview: Jessica Sarah Rinland
film profile] by Argentina’s Jessica Sarah Rinland (particularly well-received in Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente line-up) and In The Manner of Smoke by Armenian-American director Armand Yervant Tufenkian.

The Cnap Prize for Best French Film went to Sophie Bredier’s Lumière de mes yeux, which revolves around a young Egyptian boy who was blinded and disfigured during the Egyptian Revolution and who subsequently travelled to France for treatment, where the director filmed him for six months in 2012 before he slipped away to lead a clandestine life. Ten years later, the director tries to track him down… Production was entrusted to Les Films de l’œil sauvage in co-production with Les Films d’ici.

Last but not least, regarding the 12th edition of the Work in Progress section, victory went to Alejandro Alonso’s Bahía Honda, which revolves around a young Cuban shipbreaker called Pitufo who dreams of escaping the remote bay where he spends his days amid fire and cut metal. In search of his freedom, he ventures into a graveyard of ships, a place where his longings finally begin to take shape… Production falls to France (Boris Prieto on behalf of Vega Alta Films), Cuba (Daniela Muñoz for Estudio ST) and Norway (Sørfond).

The full list of winners is as follows:

Cinéma du Réel Grand Prize
Little Boy – James Benning (USA)

International Prize
In The Manner of Smoke - Armand Yervant Tufenkian (USA/UK)
Collective Monologue [+see also:
film review
interview: Jessica Sarah Rinland
film profile] - Jessica Sarah Rinland (Argentina/UK)

Cnap Prize for Best French Film
Lumière de mes yeux - Sophie Bredier (France)

SACEM Prize
Evidence - Lee Anne Schmitt (USA)

Loridan Ivens Prize for Best First Film
Selegna Sol – Anouk Moyaux (France) (medium-length film)

Best Short Film
Notes of a Crocodile - Daphne Xu (Cambodia/China/Canada)

Tënk Prize
About The Pink Cocoon - Binyu Wang (China) (short film)

Other awards

Ciné+ Festival Youth Prize
Far From Anger - Joël Akafou (Ivory Coast/Burkina Faso/France)

Libraries Prize
Far From Anger

Intangible Cultural Heritage Prize
Monikondee - lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan, Tolin Erwin Alexander (Surinam/Netherlands)
Special Mention
Stream-Story - Amit Dutta (India) (short film)

Clarens Prize for Best Humanist Documentary
One, Angarskaia Street - Rostislav Kirpicenko (France/Ukraine)

Inmate Award
I’m Only a Body - Eva Morin (Belgium) (short film)

First Window Audience Award
I’m Only a Body - Eva Morin
Special Mention
Here I Belong – Clara Jeany (France) (short film)

ParisDOC Awards

WIP – Orlando Coup de Coeur Prize
Bahía Honda - Alejandro Alonso (Cuba/France/Norway)

Route One/Doc Prize (short film projects)
Un temps pour chercher, un temps pour perdre - Arina Adju (France)

Préludes Prize for Digitization
First Contact - Bob Conolly and Robin Anderson (Australia – 1982)

(Translated from French)