6th KIIFF - Winners

Best of Fest

Vigilant Eye - Directed by Abbas Ghazali

Country of Origin: Spain

Runtime: 28 minutes 8 seconds

Kosar Eftekhari, a young Iranian theater actress, lost the vision in one eye after being shot by security forces ( IRGC ) during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, a moment that irreversibly transformed both her life and identity.

Forced into exile, she relocates to Germany, where she begins a new life in Berlin. Yet exile proves to be more than displacement; it is a suspended state between a past that refuses to fade and a future that has yet to take shape.

Doctors inform her that she has a limited window to undergo ocular prosthesis surgery, after which the possibility may disappear permanently. This is not merely a medical decision, but a complex intersection of body, memory, politics, and identity.

While the prosthesis could allow her to reintegrate into society and return to the stage, Kosar resists concealing her wound. For her, it is not a defect, but evidence, a visible trace of violence and a living testimony she refuses to erase.

Around her, conflicting voices emerge, friends who encourage her to move on and rebuild a normal life, and activists who urge her to preserve her image as a lasting symbol of resistance.

This documentary does not reconstruct the past; it observes an unfolding present, where the final decision has not yet been made.

As the medical deadline approaches, internal and external pressures intensify. Kosar’s choice will not only shape her personal future, but also redefine the meaning of the body, memory, and resistance.

Best Feature Film

NUMB - Directed by Takuya Uchiyama

Country of Origin: Japan

Runtime: 01:58:34

In the snowy coastal city of Niigata, Daichi, a boy who has lost his voice under the tyranny of his father in early childhood, lives in a prefab room on the rooftop of an old multi-tenant building with his mother, Aki. She works in the nightlife trade, pours her earnings into men, and is rarely home, leaving their life marked by poverty and isolation.

Aki, now suffering from severe liver cirrhosis caused by years of alcoholism, moves with Daichi into the home of her sister, a devout follower of a new religious sect. There, she endures oppressive demands from her controlling lover, clinging to him even as she is harmed, while Daichi can do nothing but watch.

Daichi’s fate, fragile and swayed by forces around him, begins to shift.

Best Feature Documentary

IX XI - Directed by Sean Wilsey

Country of Origin: USA 

Runtime: 01:30:11

With a quarter century’s perspective, the documentary IX XI takes a new look at 9/11. Discarding ideology and received ideas in favor of immediacy and personal experience, the film revisits that day as it unfolded in the lives of twelve people, each on the cusp of understanding that their own experiences are intersecting with one of the most significant events in living history. These New Yorkers, who span the city’s cultural and economic spectrum, among them Tibetan refugee Amadeus Broger (born Chokhon Kunkyap), professional skateboarder Pat Smith, cartoonist Roz Chast, break dancer and UPS driver Kevin Langford, novelist Nell Zink, community organizer Kifah Shah, and actor Griffin Dunne, vividly relive that tragic day in uninhibited and cacophonous style. For the viewer, the result is a documentary that recreates that same atmosphere of rawness and vulnerability that followed the attacks, and allows a group of fascinating strangers to come close and show their most vulnerable selves. Of the 12 people in the film, some were at the center of the destruction of the Twin Towers, others far removed, but they, like all of us, crossed a border on that day between the world we knew and the world we live in now.

Best Short Film

Somewhere I Belong - Directed by Youssef Handouse

Country of Origin: Tunisia

Runtime: 21:13

After years of absence, a man comes back to a hometown that no longer feels like he's, pushing him to question identity, memory, and the meaning of home.

Best Short Documentary

Miriam - Directed by Karla Condado 

Country of Origin: Mexico

Runtime: 19:50

Through this performatic video letter, the director talks with her aunt, who was a victim of femicide years ago, about what it has been like for her to grow up in fear in a country that is dangerous for women, trying to forge her path as the only woman in her family and cope with the grief of the femicide.

Best Kurdish Film | Filmmaker

My Name Is Hope - Directed by Sherwan Haji 

Country of Origin: Finland, Syria 

Runtime: 20:00

You are alive as long as someone remembers your name.

In a Syrian intelligence service prison, a university student witnesses, through the narrow food hatch of his cell, events that mirror the horrific reality of his nation. Hope is born, as prisoners keep alive the fading light of resistance in a world that has chosen to forget them.

Best Short Animation

The Rusty Fish - Directed by Milad Fathiani

Country of Origin: Iran

Runtime: 6:15

“Rusty Fish” is a symbolic and thought-provoking narrative of the conflict between man and nature. The story revolves around a hunter who relentlessly and without regard for the consequences of his behavior, destroys the environment around him. He not only hunts animals, but also, with a domineering spirit, disrupts the delicate balance of nature. In his view, nature is merely a resource for exploitation; lifeless, defenseless, and doomed to surrender.

Best Feature Screenplay

KENNEDY - Written By Darren K Hawkins and Lauren Hamilton Neill

Michael and Bridget Kennedy, Irish immigrants to the new lands of colonial Australia in the 1800's. Michael is a hard working police officer, Bridget, fierce and keen business minded . Together they forge a new life for themselves in a harsh new world.

Best Short Script

Confetti Christ - Written By Jesse Carl Nyander

"Confetti Christ" is a surreal psychological satire that follows Evan, a lonely, radicalized man whose identity has been consumed by online manosphere culture. After discovering glitter-like particles in his semen, he becomes convinced his body is being transformed into plastic through a vast conspiracy. As paranoia blurs into hallucination, Evan spirals through a city that increasingly reflects his fractured worldview, clinging to toxic influencers and miracle supplements in a desperate attempt to reclaim his masculinity. Equal parts body horror, dark comedy, and social commentary, Confetti Christ explores the corrosive effects of isolation, internet extremism, and the commodification of modern manhood.

Best Director

Karla Condado for “Miriam”

Best Leading Actor

Takumi Kitamura for “NUMB”

Best Leading Actress

Rie Miyazawa for “NUMB”

Best Supporting Actor

Juaquin Sebastian Rosales for “Twentieth Century Revenants”

Best Supporting Actress

Leila Bolukat for “They Loved Me”

Best Cinematography

Eok Yu for “A Vast Algorithm Of Humanity”

Best Editing

Masato Yuki for “Our Voice”

Best Costume Designer

Damien Osborn for “Journey”

Best Original Score

Amir Bayat for “Mahwash”

Best Sound

Sahil Padhiyar and Conor Waldron for “The Thrift Store Dress”