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2026 FOCAL International Awards Shortlisted Nominees

2026 Best Use of Footage in a Cinematic Feature

Feature documentaries or films which are cinematic in ambition and scope but not necessarily limited to traditional cinema releases. They may be feature documentaries that rely on archival footage to drive the narrative or feature fiction that uses archival footage astutely to clarify or enhance the storytelling in an essential way.

Shortlisted

Apollo 1

Director:
Mark Craig
Producer(s):
Mark Craig / Keith Haviland / Ansgar Pohle
Footage Archive Researcher:
Mark Craig
Footage Archive Producer:
Steve Bergson / Joe Harris
Archival Sources:
U.S. National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) / Associated Press / CBS News (Veritone) / ABC News / Pond5
Production Company:
Stopwatch Productions / Haviland Digital / 7T1 Films
Country of Production:
United Kingdom / Germany
Original Release:
2025

Synopsis

Three pioneering astronauts in a race to the Moon put their faith in a new spacecraft riddled with problems...

 In 1967 Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee perished in a launchpad fire, the repercussions of which shook the US space program to the core, and left a lasting impact on their families and on all space flights since.

With exceptional access granted to the production team and including unseen personal archive, it's a story of jeopardy, tragedy and recovery, as told by those closest to the crew.

Ultimately, it’s an inspiring personal story of human endeavour, as the crew of NASA's Artemis II prepares to journey to the Moon and beyond, for the first time since 1972.

Broken English

Director:
Iain Forsyth / Jane Pollard
Producer(s):
Beth Earl
Footage Archive Producer:
Mike Griffiths / Kate Griffiths / Tess McNally-Watson
Archival Sources:
BBC Motion Gallery / Getty Images / ITV Archives / Reuters / VRT / INA
Production Company:
Rustic Canyon Pictures
Country of Production:
United Kingdom
Original Release:
2025

Synopsis

Broken English is a bold documentary portrait of the inimitable singer, songwriter and icon Marianne Faithfull.

A survivor, provocateur and true original, Marianne has spent more than six decades defying expectations — releasing over thirty-five albums while constantly reinventing herself. Made with her full involvement, Broken English is an intimate and unflinching exploration of a fractured yet unbreakable life shaped by fame, creativity and relentless public scrutiny. 

he film unfolds within the Ministry of Not Forgetting — an imagined, cinematic institution where memory and mythology collide.

Broken English is a genre-defying act of resilience and rebellion — Marianne Faithfull’s final fearless declaration, her defiant swan song.

The Eyes of Ghana

Director:
Ben Proudfoot
Producer(s):
Nana Adwoa Frimpong / Ben Proudfoot / Anita Afonu / Moses Bwayo / Brandon Somerhalder / Ethan Lewis / Vinnie Malhotra
Footage Archive Researcher:
Christina Bartson / Sonia Desai Rayka / Arsh Harjani / Jessie Hearther
Footage Archive Producer:
Gabriel Rivera
Archival Sources:
Ghana National Film Archive / Associated Press / British Pathé / Reuters / British Film Institute
Production Company:
Breakwater Studios / Higher Ground Media
Country of Production:
United States
Original Release:
2025

Synopsis

From Oscar®-winning director Ben Proudfoot, THE EYES OF GHANA is a stunning feature documentary following 93-year-old documentarian Chris Hesse—personal cinematographer to forgotten African icon Kwame Nkrumah—as he races against blindness and time to rescue and repatriate a secret trove of over 1,000 films that captured the birth of African independence in the fifties and sixties. Yet unseen by the public, these films may not only rewrite Ghanaian and African history—but world history itself.

Je n'avais que le néant - "Shoah" by Lanzmann (All I Had Was Nothingness)

Director:
Guillaume Ribot
Producer(s):
Estelle Fialon / Dominique Lanzmann
Footage Archive Producer:
Guillaume Ribot"Shoah" by Claude Lanzmann (1985)
Archival Sources:
"Shoah" by Claude Lanzmann (1985)
Production Company:
Les Films du Poisson / Les Films Aleph / ARTE France
Country of Production:
France
Original Release:
2025

Synopsis

Claude Lanzmann spent 12 years creating "Shoah" (1985), a groundbreaking film that redefined Holocaust representation. 40 years later, filmmaker Guillaume Ribot explores 220 hours of unreleased footage.

Lanzmann’s quest to capture the reality of the Holocaust led him to interview victims, witnesses, and perpetrators from all over the world. Overcoming doubt, setbacks, and false leads, he embarked on an unparalleled journey culminating in a landmark masterpiece, now part of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

Only using Lanzmann’s own words drawn from his memoirs and never-before-seen excerpts, Guillaume Ribot pays homage to one of cinema’s masterpieces and to its director’s relentless pursuit of telling the untold.

Do You Love Me

Director:
Lana Daher
Producer(s):
Jean-Laurent Csinidis / Lana DAHER
Footage Archive Researcher:
Emmanuelle Yacoubi
Archival Sources:
Nadi Lekol Nas / Abbout Productions / Bahij Hojeij / Association Jocelyne Saab / Mille et une productions
Production Company:
Films de Force Majeure / My Little Films / Wood Water Films
Country of Production:
France / Lebanon / Germany
Original Release:
2025

Synopsis

DO YOU LOVE ME is an archive-based documentary that follows the lived experiences of generations of Lebanese from the 1950s until today. It utilises a wide range of mixed media collected from journalistic archives, T.V. & pop culture, video art pieces, photography, radio, newspaper prints, documentary and fiction films, home videos, and personal archives. The film covers the oscillation between moments of war and moments of calm throughout the given period. Featuring the stories, anecdotes, songs, art, and culture of the people who remained in Lebanon through these years we begin to see and understand this society’s collective memory, dynamics, and psyche. Rather than recounting a more traditional history, the film attempts to portray an emotional ethnography of the Lebanese people. It presents us with the conundrum of a country that is stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to agree on its own past, present, or future. The film’s focus is not on a deep nostalgia for the past or the promise of any answers: instead, it lingers on the questions raised about life in these challenging times and how it affects our experience of the present.