The 10th anniversary edition of Verzió Film Festival’s DocLab platform has announced its professional awards, with Hungarian project The Grandfather Puzzle emerging as the major winner of the year’s industry programme.
DocLab, the development and networking forum of the Verzió International Human Rights Film Festival, brought together six international documentary projects from Georgia, Spain, Italy, Finland, Ukraine and Hungary. In partnership with the Hungarian Documentary Association (MADOKE), four additional Hungarian works-in-progress were also introduced to festival programmers, producers and commissioning editors, expanding the platform’s focus on both regional and international talent.
The Grandfather Puzzle, produced by Matchframe, took home three key distinctions. It received the HBO Development Award, a €1,500 grant to support further development; the FocusFox Award, consisting of 18 hours of Baselight colour grading at FocusFox’s Budapest studio; and the Verzió x Doc Around Europe, What a DAE! Award, a €1,000 contribution towards attending the 76th Berlinale in 2026, including European Film Market accreditation via the European Documentary Association (DAE). Directed and edited by Ora DeKornfeld, the film follows a granddaughter who retraces her 100-year-old grandfather’s #Holocaust escape route in Hungary, using photography and jigsaw puzzles to trigger and assemble buried memories.
The DAE Encouragement Award, which includes a one-year DAE membership and tailored consultancy, went to Inherited Shadow (dir. Mariana Reyes, prod. Kaarle Aho), a Finnish project exploring #trauma and self-knowledge through lament traditions. A special mention was given to East of Hope, directed and edited by Réka Ugron and produced by Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan.
Within the MADOKE x Verzió: Hun Docs Cookin’ strand, Borders of Belonging (dir. Júlia Ubrankovics) won the On the Spot Award for best Hungarian documentary in development. Home is a Dollhouse (dir. Dorottya Márton) received both MADOKE’s
Best Hungarian Project Award – including long-term mentorship – and the
Social Caption Award for English subtitling support.
Verzió DocPro director and #MADOKE board member #Fanni Hatházi# underlined the strong overall level of projects and expressed hopes that the awards will translate into sustained backing for the filmmakers as they complete their films.
