It may be a simple thing to turn on a camera, but a rare few can capture the poetry and chaos of everyday life as it happens. Vertov said that the camera, the cinema eye (or kino-eye), was more powerful than the human eye. The camera is also the extension of the documentarian’s heart, in the moment, as they capture life unfolding. This award captures the great visual artists of our form. Previous winners in this category include Heloisa Passos for Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) (2008), Peter Zeitlinger for Encounters at the End of the World (2009), Brook Aitken for The Cove (2010), Lixin Fan for Last Train Home (2011), Danfung Dennis for Hell and Back Again (2012), Jeff Orlowski for Chasing Ice (2013), Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel for Leviathan (2014), Erik Wilson for 20,000 Days on Earth and Franklin Dow & Orlando von Einsiedel for Virguna (2015), Matthew Heineman & Matt Porwoll for Cartel Land and Jimmy Chin & Renan Ozturk for Meru (2016), Kirsten Johnson for Cameraperson (2017), Andrew Ackerman and Jeff Orlowski for Chasing Coral (2018), Jimmy Chin, Clair Popkin and Mikey Schaeffer for Free Solo (2019), Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma for Honeyland (2020), Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw for Truffle Hunters (2021), Jessica Kingdon and Nathan Truesdell for Ascension (2022), Ben Bernhard for All That Breathes (2023) and Ants Tammik for Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (2024).
