The Tale of Silyan wins Best Feature Doc at the 2025 IDA Documentary Awards

At the ceremony on December 6 at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, “The Tale of Silyan” won the Best Feature Documentary award from the 2025 International Documentary Association (IDA). This National Geographic movie, directed by Tamara Kotevska, follows a North Macedonian farmer’s relationship with an injured white stork. It also won Best Cinematography for Jean Dakar. The event showcased nonfiction storytelling from around the world, with over 550 entries from 85 countries.

Winners in Important Categories

• “The Tale of Silyan” (North Macedonia, U.S., U.K.) by Tamara Kotevska won for Best Feature Documentary.
• “Looking for a Donkey” (Mexico, Venezuela) – Juan Vicente Manrique, dir. – Best Short Documentary
• Best Director: Brittany Shyne for “Seeds” (U.S.), which is about Black farmers in the American South.
• Jean Dakar’s “The Tale of Silyan” won the award for Best Cinematography.
• Best Editing: “WTO/99” by Alex Megaro and Ian Bell (U.S.).
• Best Original Score: “The Sorcerer: Julio Zachrisson” by Frédéric Fattare (Panama).
• Best Production: “Apocalypse in the Tropics” by Alessandra Orofino and Petra Costa (U.S., Netflix).
• Best Sound Design: Thomas Perezape, “Only on Earth” (Denmark, Spain).
• Best Writing: “Apocalypse in the Tropics” by Petra Costa, Alessandra Orofino, and others. “Apocalypse in the Tropics” won two awards for its look at how evangelism affects Brazilian politics. This helped it gain Oscar momentum along with “The Tale of Silyan.” “99” won Best Curated Series, “Citizen Nation” won Best Episodic Series, and “One to One: John & Yoko” won Best Music Documentary.