2026 Edition Awards

A tender, darkly humorous meditation on death across the seasons. As a funeral unfolds and a train passes through the village, the film reflects on loss and belonging.

The film is a moving reflection on mortality, belonging and passage of time. With humour, candor, and a sharp eye, A Train Passes Every Day and It Never Stops honours the rituals through which a community accompanies its dead and sustains the bonds between those who leave and those who remain. The Astra Film Award for Best Documentary in the Romania Competition goes to A Train Passes Every Day and It Never Stops by Vlad Petri.

LENIN’S PAWN is a hybrid documentary with dark humor, following actor Sergiu Voloc, a modern-day Don Quixote, whose solitary fight with Lenin monuments in Moldova turns into an absurd confrontation with a system that restores them overnight.

The Astra Film Award for Best Director in the Romania Competition goes to Dragoș Turea for Lenin’s Pawn. For its humorous and engaging portrait of a man whose mission to remove Lenin’s monuments opens up a wider conversation about memory, history, and the generation gap. With wit and warmth, Lenin’s Pawn explores how a society negotiates its relationship with the past—and how differently that past lives on across generations.

Capturing several years in the lives of four family members, recording on an iPhone, director Pepa Lubojacki tries to understand why their beloved older brother and cousins live unhoused and experience substance addiction.

The jury has decided to give the award for the Best Film to a work that is extraordinary, intense, playful, full of creative cinematic solutions with a non-judgemental approach from the director, accepting reality as it unfolds thanks to humour and love. A tribute to humanity and dignity. The winner of the Astra Film award of the New voices competition section is “If Pigeons Turn to Gold” by Pepa Lubojacki from Czech Republic.

The director uncovers her artist uncle’s hidden world and begins filming his life — alongside him. Their journey toward a cinematic dialogue brings surprises and creative joy, showing that living true to oneself matters more than external approval.

We are invited to a thorough search into the artistic works of the director deceased uncle. The director Is using every cinematic tool to bring to life the multiform artist's work. The film allows also an intimate discovery into a finnish family dynamic. What begins as an exploration of an artist’s world slowly turns into an playfull portrait of a mysterious, man longing for love. The Astra Film Award for the Best director award in the New Voices category to Karin Penanen.

On a Pacific island, ordinary women take the burlesque stage to turn their vulnerability into strength, their bodies into a manifesto, and their journey into an act of liberation.

A journey that avoids all the expected clichés and delves into a diverse group of characters of different ages and backgrounds, confronting their insecurities. Set on a small island, the film tells an intimate and genuine story that explores internal debates on personal experiences. The characters' journey of empowerment is revealed as they prepare for the anniversary performance of the burlesque show and the cinematography keeps the intimacy in forefront. The Award for Best Documentary in the DocSchool Competition goes to Sassy Spartans by Maud Mascré.

A whimsical filmmaker turns to his rational zoologist mother to help film animals. As memories of tigers and pet rabbits surface, the zoologist is compelled to question her relationship with animals.

The Astra Film special mention of the docschool competition goes to a beautiful shot film with exceptional sound design that touches on parallel stories of the director's relationship with his mother and the internal lives of zoo animals. The movie is very touching and emotionally deep and the jury had a unanimous decision that Kartikeya Saxena and his film Amma, Do Giraffes Cry? Should be honoured.