The Uprising, which was produced by Brussels-based Rien à voir production with the UK’s Third Films of Duane Hopkins and Samm Haillay as co-producers, had its world premiere in Jihlava," writes Martin Blaney in his report for Screen Daily.

"Yes, there were awards presented at the closing night ceremony," continues Cathy Miles for Film New Europe, "But the biggest award – bestowed by the number of industry attendees and the enthusiastic, mostly young audiences – goes to the festival itself. An originator of innovative programmes beginning with the East Silver Market, the festival is gathering laurels for its most recent creations, the Festival Identity programme and the Emerging Producers programmes. The scope and richness of the redesigned festival doesn’t end with these two high profile events... Jihlava IDFF consolidated its standing as the magnet for regional documentary filmmakers under the visionary leadership of director/founder Marek Hovorka."

BEST WORLD DOCUMENTARY FILM

The Best International Documentary Film Award went to Peter Snowdon’s The Uprising (Belgium, UK, 2013). The sole juror in the Opus Bonum section, the American experimental filmmaker Craig Baldwin, supported his selection with the following statement: 
“This year’s winner is a film which in turn saddened me, frightened me, outraged me, inspired me, and ultimately made me truly proud to be a part of the democratic project and the struggle for human dignity. The Opus Bonum Award goes to Peter Snowdon’s profoundly compelling compilation of amateur footage from the Arab spring The Uprising.”

BEST CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY FILM 2013

The winner in this category is a documentary film entitled Winter / Miracle (Croatia, Denmark, Brazil, 2012) by Gustavo Beck and Željka Suková. The jury composed of Dudley Andrew (film theorist at Yale, pedagogue, USA), Lordan Zafranović (director, Croatia), Gwenaël Breës  (director of video films and organizer of documentary workshops, Belgium) and Özge Calafato (film festival programmer and consultant, Turkey) commented on the presentation of the award as follows:
Our Best Film award goes to a work that pushes the boundaries of genres to reach for new realms of cinematic experience, at once sensual and iconoclastic. This film defies all norms of production in order to speak with artistic freedom about a social freedom to come. We salute Željka Suková and Gustavo Beck for having struggled together to create Winter / Miracle, a film whose exuberant geography and more exuberant cinematography should invigorate all of us in Jihlava as spectators and as artists.
The jury’s Special Mention was awarded to Robert Kirtschhoff’s Normalization (Slovakia, 2013) for the tenacity and ingenuity of his pursuit of justice and of a form of cinema capable of rendering it.

BEST CZECH DOCUMENTARY FILM

The award for the Best Czech Documentary Film went to the documentary The Great Night (Czech Republic, 2013) directed by Petr Hátle. Jury members Lukáš Kokeš and Klára Tasovská (directors of Fortress, the winner of Jihlava’s Best Czech Documentary Film Award in 2012 and this year’s nominee for the Lux Award), Radek Cihla (CSFD.cz reviewer) and Katarína Ruschková (Jihlava citizen and the head of Jihlava’s department of environment) selected The Great Night “for its specific visual language the exploration of which pushes the established boundaries of what we are still willing to accept as “documentary film” and in terms of the Czech context represents a significant attempt to set off in a different direction in approaching the documentary method of representation of reality.”
The jury of the Czech Joy section also awarded its Special Mention to the film To Rule, To Work, To Earn, To Pray, To Collapse (Czech Republic, 2013) by Andran Abramjan, who created a concise metaphor of collapse of the existing social system.

BEST EXPERIMENTAL DOCUMENTARY FILM

In view of the essential incommensurability of the film and digital image, the jury consisting of the members of the family of Martin Čihák and Laura Victoria Delgado decided to give out two awards. 
“One goes to the film Song by Nathaniel Dorsky (USA, 2013) for the fascination with the film image and the uniquely elaborated composition resonance between the nature of light-seeking film material and the potential of film silence.
And the second goes to the opus Exterior Extended by Siegfried Alexander Fruhauf (Austria, 2013) for the fascination with digital image and for drawing attention to the processes extending the perception of illusionist images and the ability to arrange the composition and meaning-conveying whole with a profound physiological impact on the spectators.”

SILVER EYE AWARD 2013

For the 5th time, the Institute of Documentary Film presents the Silver Eye Award for the best documentary films included in the East Silver market. The idea behind the award is to attract attention to unique films from the Central and Eastern European region and to help nominated films to find sales agents or film festival and TV releases.

• This year’s Best Short-length Documentary Film is Previous Scenes (Aleksandra Maciuszek, Poland, Cuba, 2013), selected by a jury composed of Monika Mikušová (RTVS, Slovakia), Veton Nurkollari (Dokufest, Kosovo), Donatien Pierda (Java Films, France).

• The Best Mid-length Documentary Film Award went to Joanna (Aneta Kopacz, Poland, 2013). The members of the jury were Youn Ji (Autlook Filmsales, Austria), Hanka Kastelicová (HBO Europe, Hungary) and Charlie Phillips (Sheffield Doc/fest, UK).
• The Best Feature-length Documentary Film is The 727 Days Without Karamo (Anja Salomonowitz, Austria, 2013), picked by a jury consisting of Jan Daae (DR TV, Denmark), Elena Fortes (Ambulante Film Festival, Mexico) and Irena Taskovski (Taskovski Films, UK).

Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosolowski won the Special Mention for the metaphysical portrayal of socialism in their film The Art of Disappearing (Poland, 2013).