The Marché du Film's Cannes Docs is thrilled to announce the 2026 Docs-in-Progress winners, selected by our esteemed jury: Themba Bhebhe, Fujioka Asako and Paulina Portela.
Presented in partnership with global institutions and organizations, the program features 8 showcases and a total of 33 projects in various stages of production from around the globe.
To support these emerging works, ten industry awards were presented this year by leading partners during the Docs-in-Progress Awards Ceremony on Doc Day — the program’s highly anticipated celebration of documentary filmmaking craft in Cannes.
The 2026 Docs-in-Progress winners are:
- SUPER SILA (Palestine)
Presented in the Palestinian Showcase
Winner of the IEFTF Award (€10,000 prize and project follow-up) and of the Al Jazeera Documentary Award ($15,000 prize)
Director: Mohammed Alshareef
Producer: Ala’ Abu Ghoush
Synopsis: In the heart of the war on Gaza, a father creates an imaginary world where his young daughter becomes a superhero. As war surrounds them, he turns reality into stories to protect her childhood, leaving an open question: does Sila understand what is happening around her, or does she already know more than he thinks? - BURNING DADDY (Chile, Germany, Spain)
Presented in the Chile-Colombia Showcase
Winner of the TransPerfect Media Post-Production Award (€5,000 prize)
Director: Tana Gilbert
Producers: Paola Castillo Villagrán, Dirk Manthey, Carolina Astudillo, Wendy Espinal
Synopsis: Camila and her family reconstruct the image of her swindler father through photographs, court records and memories fractured by his violence. A charismatic man who promised limitless success. When the fantasy crumbled, intimacy became fear and silence a way to endure. The film traces the dismantling of a father shaped by neoliberal illusion, and the fragile rebuilding of those who survived his fiction. - BLACK DAD BUKO (Sweden)
Presented in the The Five Nordics Showcase
Winner of the Rise and Shine Award (€3,000 prize)
Director: Simon Klose
Producers: Martin Persson, Elin Kamlert
Synopsis: Swedish rapper Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité prepares for the show of his life in Harlem. His father, Madubuko “Buko” Diakité, refuses to attend. They have a strained relationship, but when Buko nearly dies, Jason realizes his father is his last living link to his African American roots. Determined to understand his heritage, Jason travels to South Carolina to research his family history. - CHILAPA’S GIRL (Colombia)
Presented in the Chile-Colombia Showcase
Winner of the American Documentary Award ($2,500 prize and potential pre-buy)
Director: Juana Lotero
Producers: Anahí Farfán, Juana Lotero
Synopsis: Yulieth (11–15), a brave and rebellious girl grows up in a wild territory where natural beauty coexists with the harshness of machismo. As she becomes a mother, she forms a fragile adolescent family while striving to shape a different path from the one inherited by the women in her family. - THE UNDERMINE (UK, Ireland)
Presented in the Scotland Showcase
Winner of the Alphapanda Award (2 sessions of marketing consultancy with Alphapanda team members and the creation of an artwork for the film)
Director: Alice Nelson
Producer: Lili Sandelin
Synopsis: The Undermine straddles the real and the inner world of four generations of the director’s family – a dreamlike juxtaposition stitching together a version of the past, and a possible map for the future. Themes of trauma and neurodiversity mirror the worldwide explosion of diagnoses, an increasing understanding of how different brains work and how traditional western systems have failed them. - GAZA SUNBIRDS (Belgium, UK, France, Palestine)
Presented in the Palestinian Showcase
Winner of the Think-Film Impact Award (a strategic impact workshop)
Director: Flavia Cappellini
Producers: Kristian van der Heyden, Alex King, Andrea Kurland, Lydia Kali, May Jabareen
Synopsis: When a young amputee cyclist and his underdog team of bike racers chase their dream of representing Palestine on the world stage, their six-year odyssey becomes a matter of life or death adaptation as bombs descend on Gaza. - ANTIPODAL DREAMS (Colombia, Mexico)
Presented in the Chile-Colombia Showcase
Winner of the Rulli Putortì & Partners Firm Award (3 two-hour long legal support consultations)
Director: Juanita Onzaga
Producer: Juanita Onzaga
Synopsis: A young Colombian dancer carries her brother’s death in her body, killed during the historic uprising of 2021, silenced by state violence. With her friends, through the memory of the body, dreams and collective creation they open a portal of sound, which leads them to their antipode in Thailand, finding a ritual for the youth who never returned.
- BABA (Italy)
Presented in the Palestinian Showcase
Winner of the DAE Award (free one-year memberships for the team and rough cut consultation)
Directors: Giacomo Fausti, Laila Sit Aboha
Producer: Marta Melina
Synopsis: When she realizes her story is not an isolated one, Laila, a young Italian-Palestinian woman, confronts the family lunch her father never misses. Alongside a new generation shaped by exile, she navigates silences and absences until the day of a wedding: mothers sit in the front row, sons and daughters too, the fathers do not.
- BA’S BOOK (Canada)
Presented in the Canada Showcase
Winner of the Documentary Magazine Award (a full-page announcement in the Documentary Magazine Summer 2026 issue and a dedicated interview or profile in a later print issue)
Director: Ashley Duong
Producer: Ina Fichman
Synopsis: When a filmmaker receives her father’s memoir about the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution, she answers with a film. Returning to her ancestral village, she collaborates with her father and relatives to film participatory re-creations of their past. A true hybrid of live-action and documentary, Ba’s Book offers a disarming look at how a family moves forward from divisions caused by displacement and war.