Silyan’s Tale won the top prize at the International Documentary Association awards ceremony on Saturday.
The National Geographic title, which follows a North Macedonian immigrant who forms a relationship with an injured white stork as he adapts to life in a new country, won best documentary feature. The film also won the Best Cinematography award for Jean Dakar, who previously worked on the feature Walking and the television series Radius.
The film, directed by the Oscar-nominated director Land of honey director Tamara Kotevska, has already won the Cinema and Arts prize at the Venice Film Festival. North Macedonia selected this title as its best Oscar submission for an international feature film.
Other winners at Saturday’s ceremony included Brittany Shyne, who won best director for her portrayal of black farmers, Seeds. Apocalypse in the tropicsa study of the role that evangelism has played in Brazilian politics, received two awards, for best production and for best writing.
Other winners included Looking for a donkey (best short documentary), WTO/99 (best editing),
The Sorcerer: Julio Zachrisson (best original music) and Only on Earth (better sound design). 99 won the best organized series, Citizen nation received the award for best episodic series and One-on-one: John and Yoko won the award for best music documentary.
What a day, what a life from the UK’s National Film and Television School, won Best Student Documentary. President deaf now! won the ABC News Videosource Award and River of grass received the Paré Lorentz Prize.
The 2025 IDA Awards took place over three days but concluded with the ceremony Saturday morning at the Los Angeles Athletic Club in downtown Los Angeles. The ceremony was hosted by former Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson.
See the full list of winners below.
BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY
Silyan’s Tale (Republic of North Macedonia, United States, United Kingdom)
BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY
Looking for a donkey (Mexico, Venezuela)
BEST DIRECTOR
Brittany Shyne, Seeds (UNITED STATES)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Jean Dakar, Silyan’s Tale (Republic of North Macedonia, United States, United Kingdom)
BEST EDITION
Alex Megaro, Ian Bell, WTO/99 (UNITED STATES)
BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC SHEET
Frédéric Filiatre, The Sorcerer: Julio Zachrisson (Panama)
BEST ACHIEVEMENT
Alessandra Orofino, Petra CostaApocalypse in the tropics (UNITED STATES)
BEST SOUND DESIGN
Thomas Perez-Pape, Only on Earth (Denmark, Spain)
BEST WRITING
Petra Costa, Alessandra Orofino, Nels Bangerter, David Barker, Tina Baz, Apocalypse in the tropics (UNITED STATES)
BEST CURATED SERIES
99 (France)
BEST EPISODIC SERIES
Citizen Nation (UNITED STATES)
BEST MUSICAL DOCUMENTARY
One-on-one: John and Yoko (United Kingdom)
STUDENT DOCUMENTARY BY DAVID L. WOLPER
What a day, what a life (United Kingdom)
ABC NEWS AWARDS VIDEO SOURCE
President deaf now! (UNITED STATES)
PARÉ LORENTZ PRIZE
River of grass (UNITED STATES)
