Grand & Impact Prize - Nazar by Lara Kobeissi, UK, Lebanon

Nazar is a tender, intimate encounter between performer and participant, blending live presence and VR to explore vulnerability and connection.

Grand & Impact Prize - Dark Rooms by Mads Damsbo, Laurits Flensted Jensen & Anne Sofie Steen Sverdrup, Denmark, Taiwan, Germany

Dark Rooms is an immersive documentary exploring LGBTQIA+ identity, sexuality, and social realities through hybrid VR storytelling.

Cinematic Creativity Award - Scent by Alan Kwan, United States

Humanity Award - The Awake by Hsiao-Ting Hsieh & Hsiao-Wei Hsieh, Taiwan

Storytelling Achievement Award - The Daladala Verse by Aurelio Mofuga, Tanzania

Grand Prize - The Rift by Janire Najera & Matt Wright, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe

The Rift is an evocative fulldome dance film set within the landscapes of Zimbabwe. Through movement and spatial choreography, performers embody the tension, resilience and interconnectedness between humanity and the natural world under the pressures of climate change.

Special Mentions - Reality Looks Back by Anne Jeppesen & Omid Zarei, Denmark

Grand Prize - SUKU by Durk van der Meer, Curaçao

Created after relocating from Europe to Curaçao during the COVID period, SUKU is an explorable painting infused with new landscapes, colors, and inspirations. The work invites audiences into a vibrant, otherworldly environment where personal transformation and geography merge.

XR Development Award - Submerged City by Francisco Almendra, Brazil

Submerged City is a speculative underwater journey set in a future where rising seas have swallowed coastal cities. Aboard a submarine, participants explore submerged ruins and uncover time capsules left by climate refugees: intimate stories of loss, love, and hope from the XXI century.

TUMO Award - The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up by Singing Chen, Taiwan, Germany

The TUMO Award honors a project that combines artistic sensitivity with innovative storytelling. This year’s award goes to a poetic and introspective work that navigates grief through myth and memory. Blending personal loss with the Rukai origin story, the project unfolds as a dreamlike journey, delicately exploring the ties between love, culture, and the invisible world.

CPH:LAB Award - The Ship of the Forgotten by Harrysson Hazoumè, Benin

The CPH:LAB award goes to an especially interesting project in early development which has the potential to change how we see the world and which we feel will benefit from the LAB experience. This year’s award goes to a project that explores a dark episode in colonial history in order to explore the evolution of Black identity in a post-colonial world.

DOK Leipizg Award - Zameen : Archives of a Living Earth by Avinash Kumar, Alap Parikh & Ami Mehta, India, UK

The award is presented for an outstanding fusion of archival research with innovative XR storytelling, bringing climate memory to life while uncovering hidden, postcolonial narratives embedded in human-nature relationships. The project also offers a compelling reflection on how AI reshapes our engagement with archives, opening new critical and poetic possibilities for the future of immersive documentary.

Art*VR Prize - Post Binary by Diane Dormet, Switzerland

Post Binary was selected for its inventive and visually distinctive exploration of societal binaries. Through a deeply personal lens, the author crafts a tactile and visually unsettling experience that invites us to reconsider our relationship to our bodies and emotions.

EliXR Award - The Ship of the Forgotten by Harrysson Hazoum, Benin

Joséphine Derobe and Stella Jacob, as the jury for this award, which includes Elixr membership and mentorship from their expert network, chose the project The Ship of the Forgotten.

XR Must Award - Blur by Craig Quintero & Phoebe Greenberg, Canada, Taiwan, Greece

The XR Must Award recognizes a project that boldly reimagines storytelling through immersive technologies. This year’s award goes to a striking and thought-provoking experience set in a near future shaped by cloning.