Mothers of Chibok, a US, Australian and Nigerian production directed by Nigerian filmmaker, Joel Kachi Benson, took home the Encounters Al Jazeera Award for Best African Feature Documentary.
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
The winners of the 27th edition of Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival have been announced, following the conclusion of the festival on Sunday, 29th June 2025.
Mothers of Chibok (2024), a US, Australian and Nigerian production directed by Nigerian filmmaker, Joel ‘Kachi Benson, took home the Encounters Al Jazeera Award for Best African Feature Documentary. Only three days before, Benson received the Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary Emmy at the 46th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, for his 2024 Disney original documentary, Madu.
Mothers of Chibok is the sequel to Benson’s 2019 documentary short, Daughters of Chibok, which won “Best Virtual Reality Story” at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival. The sequel follows a group of mothers in Chibok as they deal with loss and the struggle to educate their children in the wake of the 2014 Chibok Schoolgirls Kidnapping.
And She Didn’t Die (2025), a South African and UK production directed by South African filmmaker, Kethiwe Ngcobo, was recognised as the runner-up for Best African Feature Documentary and also won the Ronelle Loots Award for Best Edited South African Feature.
Ngcobo’s documentary is a tribute to the filmmaker’s mother, Lauretta Ngcobo, who was a renowned author, political activist, and parliamentarian. And She Didn’t Die chronicles the activist’s journey from a rural storyteller to a revolutionary, political exile, and celebrated feminist writer.
In the international documentary category, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (2025), a production of France and Palestine by Iranian director, Sepideh Farsi, won the Encounters Al Jazeera Award for Best International Feature Documentary.
Farsi’s film documents life under bombardment in Gaza through the perspective of the 25-year-old Palestinian journalist, Fatima Hassouna, who was unfortunately killed by an Israeli missile strike that targeted her family’s residence in April 2025 shortly before the film’s screening in the independent ACID sidebar of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
Union (2024), a US documentary by American director, Stephen Maing and Canadian director, Brett Story, was declared runner-up in the Best International Feature Documentary category. Union had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and follows a group of Amazon workers in Staten Island as they take on the powerful Amazon in the fight to unionise.
In the shorts category, The Rock Speaks (2024), a South African and UK documentary directed by Francois Knoetze, Amy Louise Wilson and Joe-Yves Salankang Sa-Ngol, was awarded the Ster-Kinekor Encounters Youth Experience Award for Best African Short Documentary, with Guardian of the Well (2025), a Chadian film by directors Bentley Brown and Tahir Ben Mahamat Zene as runner-up.
The Rock Speaks is a hybrid AI documentary which navigates the trans-global technological production supply chain, from the perspective of a piece of cobalt, while Guardian of the Well explores the climate emergency through conversations that take place around a well in a local community.
Jessie Ayles’ Never Come Fetch Me (2024), a South African and UK collaboration about a young boy’s life on the streets of Cape Town’s ganglands, won the Ronelle Loots Award for Best Edited South African Short.
Miki Redelinghuys, whose 2024 documentary, Mother City, won the Best African Documentary Award at the 2024 Africa International Film Festival, was awarded the Liezel Vermeulen Award for Service to the Documentary Sector.
Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival is Africa’s premier documentary film festival. The festival, which was held in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, featured a diverse slate of documentaries, celebrating the best in documentary filmmaking from Africa and beyond.