First Recipient is Editor Janus Billeskov Jansen
Final Nominations for 19th Annual Honors – Nonfiction Short Film and Heterodox
Four Legacy Award Films Named:
Portrait of Jason, Burden of Dreams, Sans Soleil and Tongues Untied
Final Voting for Audience Choice Prize Ends Today at 5pm PT
19th Annual Award Ceremony set for Thursday, January 8, 2026
at New York Academy of Medicine in East Harlem, New York
Los Angeles, CA, November 15, 2025 — Today, the Cinema Eye Honors unveiled a brand new honorary award – the Cinema Eye/Con Award for Career Achievement – and announced that the first recipient will be acclaimed Danish editor Janus Billeskov Jansen.
In addition, Cinema Eye announced that they will add four influential documentaries to their Legacy Award canon and revealed the final nominations for the 2026 Awards in the categories of Nonfiction Short Film and the Heterodox Award.
Finally, documentary film fans have just a few hours remaining to vote for this year’s Audience Choice Prize. Already more than 100,000 votes have been cast to determine this year’s winner.
“Janus Billeskov Jansen is one of world’s greatest living editors,” said Cinema Eye Founding Director AJ Schnack in announcing Jansen as the first recipient of the organization’s new career achievement honor, the Cinema Eye/Con Award. “His work across nonfiction and fiction over five decades has changed the way we look at film and has positioned Danish cinema as among the most exciting and vital in the world.”
Among his many achievements are lengthy collaborations with filmmakers Bille August and Thomas Vinterburg (including their Oscar winning films Pelle the Conqueror and Another Round). as well as many of the most vital nonfiction films of the past two decades, including Cinema Eye winners and Oscar nominees Burma VJ, The Act of Killing, Strong Island and Flee.
“I see myself as a storyteller,” said Jansen in a statement. “In fiction I can reshape characters freely, but in documentary films I hold a moral responsibility: the people in our films are real individuals whose lives continue long after the credits. They’re not narrative devices and every cut has the power to shape how they’re seen – even how they see themselves. In the edit room I search for that one true moment where reality and story meet. Editing always involves selection, omission, and framing, and each choice influences the viewer’s understanding of what is ‘true.’ I must constantly negotiate the tension between narrative clarity and factual integrity.”
Janus Billeskov Jansen will receive the inaugural Cinema Eye/Con Award at this year’s 19th Annual Awards Ceremony, to be held Thursday, January 8, 2026 at the New York Academy of Medicine.
In addition to this new honorary award, Cinema Eye also is announcing that four influential documentary classics will be named the organization’s Legacy Award canon – Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason, Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil and Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied.
“We are excited for the opportunity to celebrate these four legendary nonfiction artists who we weren’t able to recognize in their lifetimes,” said Cinema Eye Program Director Jenn Murphy. “In the past, we’ve only honored films with living filmmakers but these four seemed crucial to add to our Legacy canon. These films bring our Legacy Award canon to 19 films as we approach our 20th edition in 2027.”
Cinema Eye is also revealing the last of this year’s nominees, in the categories of Nonfiction Short Film and Heterodox, which recognizes work that artfully blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction. In that category, the nominees are Kahlil Joseph’s BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions, Kate Beecroft’s East of Wall, Ira Sach’s Peter Hujar’s Day, Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab and season two of The Rehearsal, from director Nathan Fielder.
Both Kaouther Ben Hania and Nathan Fielder are recent Cinema Eye honorees, with Ben Hania winning Outstanding Achievement in Direction for Four Daughters and Fielder receiving two Anthology Series wins for How To with John Wilson. The first season of The Rehearsal was also a nominee for the Heterodox Award.
Six nonfiction short films advance to nominations from the annual Cinema Eye Shorts List. The nominated titles are Joshua Seftel’s All the Empty Rooms, Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud’s Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud, Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton’s The Devil is Busy, Rebecca Blöcker’s Mama Micra, Alison McAlpine’s perfectly a strangeness and Christopher Radcliff’s
We Were the Scenery.
With this nomination, Geeta Gandbhir is nominated for three different projects this year, the first time in Cinema Eye history that has ever happened. She is nominated for Outstanding Nonfiction Feature and Direction for The Perfect Neighbor as well as in the Anthology Series category for Harlem Ice.
Finally, documentary film fans around the world have until 8pm ET / 5pm PT today, Monday, December 15, 2025, to vote for the Audience Choice Prize. Nominees for Audience Choice were announced in November and a list of nominated films in that category is below.
Key Dates for the 2026 Cinema Eye Honors
Friday January 2, 2026: Final voting opens for Cinema Eye voters
Monday, January 5, 2026: Cinema Eye Week begins in New York City
Tuesday, January 6, 2026: Voting closes for the 19th Annual Cinema Eye Honors
Thursday, January 8, 2026: 19th Annual Cinema Eye Honors Awards Ceremony, New
York Academy of Medicine, East Harlem, New York
Cinema Eye/Con Award for Career Achievement
Janus Billeskov Jansen
Legacy Award
Burden of Dreams
Directed by Les Blank
Portrait of Jason
Directed by Shirley Clarke
Sans Soleil
Directed by Chris Marker
Tongues Untied
Directed by Marlon Riggs
Heterodox Award
BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions
Directed By Kahlil Joseph
East of Wall
Directed By Kate Beecroft
Peter Hujar’s Day
Directed By Ira Sachs
The Rehearsal Season 2
Directed By Nathan Fielder
To a Land Unknown
Directed By Mahdi Fleifel
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Directed By Kaouther Ben Hania
Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
All The Empty Rooms
Directed by Joshua Seftel
Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
Directed by Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud
The Devil is Busy
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton
Mama Micra
Directed by Rebecca Blöcher
perfectly a strangeness
Directed by Alison McAlpine
We Were The Scenery
Directed by Christopher Radcliff
Audience Choice Prize*
Apocalypse in the Tropics
Directed By Petra Costa
Coexistence, My Ass!
Directed By Amber Fares
Come See Me in the Good Light
Directed By Ryan White
The Eyes of Ghana
Directed By Ben Proudfoot
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley
Directed By Amy Berg
The Librarians
Directed By Kim A. Snyder
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
Directed By Shoshannah Stern
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Directed By David Borenstein
Prime Minister
Directed By Michelle Walsh and Lindsay Utz
The Tale of Silyan
Directed By Tamara Kotevska
*Previously announced, with voting closing today.
