The Institute of Documentary Film presented the East Doc Award to Ip Dip Sky Blue, directed by Nino Lomadze and produced by Gvantsa Nadibaidze, during the Beldocs Pitching Forum awards ceremony held on the evening of May 23, 2026, as part of Beldocs Industry Days in Belgrade.
In its statement, the jury highlighted the film’s sensitive portrayal of children growing up in a region shaped by unresolved conflict: “In a landscape of conflict long neglected, the children become authors of their own image, reaching for the camera with the same lightness as they reach for play. They balance in a liminal space between the invented world of their games and inherited wound, where geopolitical weight is woven into gestures and into land their families cannot reach. This film refuses the logic of silence and lets the children's gaze outweigh it.”
The East Doc Award, presented by the Institute of Documentary Film, supports promising documentary projects from Central and Eastern Europe. Alongside the award, the winning project receives a rough cut consultation with the Institute’s specialists, offering focused feedback to help shape the film ahead of its festival circulation.
Photo: Beldocs
Ip Dip Sky Blue (dir. Nino Lomadze, Georgia, 70 min.)
“Ip Dip Sky Blue” is a documentary co-created with the children growing up in Mejvriskhevi village. Moving beyond the role of mere subjects, the children are collaborators who take the cameras into their own hands, filming scenes and moments they choose to depict. As the camera follows their lead, it captures a radical contrast: the heavy, unmoving history of the adults versus the fluid, boundless world of the young. Situated near a Russian military post, Mejvriskhevi operates under unseen rules where even silence carries political weight. Yet, in their unstructured play and wordless communication, the children reach a state of total abandon. Through collective invention, they carve out a “stolen time”—a space where the rigid boundaries of the occupation dissolve, and for a few fleeting moments, joy outweighs the systemic neglect that surrounds them. (Beldocs)
Held from May 21 to 24 as part of the 19th edition of Beldocs – Belgrade International Documentary Film Festival, the Beldocs Pitching Forum once again brought together regional and international documentary professionals for four days of pitching sessions, networking, and creative exchange. The forum serves as one of the key meeting points for emerging documentary projects from Southeast and Eastern Europe.
This year’s selection showcased projects distinguished by strong artistic approaches and urgent social perspectives, reaffirming Beldocs Industry Days as an important platform for international collaboration and development within the documentary field.