The Silver Eye Award 2025 for the best feature documentary film presented at the East Doc Platform 2025 goes to the project A Song Without Home (dir. Rati Tsiteladze, prod. Olga Slusareva - ArtWay Film). Besides the main award, the jury has also decided to name a special mention, which this year goes to the project What About Petey? (dir. Martin Trabalík, prod. Jan Bodnár- GNOMON PRODUCTION S.R.O.). Congratulations!
The announcement ceremony of the winners took place on March 17 at Kino 35 at the French Institute in Prague. Apart from the trophy itself and the honor of winning such a prestigious award, the chosen project mainly receives financial support, along with a year-long festival service provided by the East Silver Caravan, valued at €3,500.
As every year, the final decision about the winner was made by experienced international jury from the industry, this year namely by:
- Rohan Berry Crickmar - Everything Was Decided in Movement Productions / Cork International Film Festival
- Marcella Jelic - Split Screen
- Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuła - Krakow Film Festival
The three-member jury commented its decision about the winner as follows:
“Taking a highly innovative visual approach to its material, this documentary project immerses itself in the emotional and physical flow of a young woman who feels incredibly isolated within her community and is searching for her own space.
Alienated from her parents and cut adrift from the wider society this intimate and strongly felt portrait intersects effectively with the increasingly difficult struggles of LGBTQI+ communities within an evermore conservative and reactionary Georgia.
We have decided to give this year’s Silver Eye Award to Rati Tsiteladze’s A SONG WITHOUT HOME. We hope this award will help the film travel much further across the festival circuit.”
Also the special mention was commented on by the jury:
“Some projects do not need to do anything demonstrably innovative with documentary form, their strength lies in the honesty and integrity with which they approach their subject matter.
The film project we would like to give a Special Mention to is just that kind of film, giving audiences powerful emotional insight into the ways in which we care for a loved one, even when that loved one presents many obstacles to receiving that love. That film is Martin Trabalik’s WHAT ABOUT PETEY?”
Since 2009, this award has been granted to the best documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe as a part of the East Silver Market, this year taking place under the East Doc Platform 2025 and the One World Film Festival 2025.
The Silver Eye Award 2025 serves as a direct support of directors and filmmakers whose project had a special impact on the industry. Whether it is their innovative approach, a strong social impact of the project, an initiation of a discussion on serious topics or an overall unique point of view.
The 7 nominated feature documentary films were:
- 9 Month Contract (dir. Ketevan Vashagashvili, GE, 2025, 90')
- A Song Without Home (dir. Rati Tsiteladze, GE, 2025, 88')
- Oh, Heart Don’t Be Afraid (dir. Ana Kvichidze, GE/DE, 2025, 90')
- What About Petey? (dir. Martin Trabalík, CZ/SK, 2025, 85')
- Because I Have To (dir. Jakub Kučera, CZ, 2024, 70')
- The Town That Drove Away (dir. Grzegorz Piekarski, Natalia Pietsch, PL, 2025, 70')
- Hungry (dir. Susanne Brandstaetter, AT, 2025, 97')
You can read more about the nominees and selected juries here.
