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THE WINNERS OF CINEDANS FEST '26!
International Short Dance Film Competition
The Cinedans Jury Award 2026 for Best International Short Dance Film goes to....
WINTERREISE | CN | 2025 | 19' | Director & Choreographer: Shenming Xiao, Yimeng Wang
Jury Report:
Jury Report:
“This short film is carried by a continuous procession of young women in a cold industrial landscape, marching relentlessly in a long, rhythmic march towards spring. In every moment and every movement, spring feels like a blossoming and a liberation. United and unstoppable, they seek beauty in colour and growth. Naive and full of hope, they blend into the daily life of a city where everyone, in their own way, longs for colour and warmth and the anticipation of what life will bring.”
This award honours the best international dance short for its outstanding artistic quality and true synergy of dance and film up to 25 minutes.
The award is endowed with 5.000 EUR prize money.
The Cinedans Jury Encouragement Award 2026 goes to....
INTERRUPTION | UK | 2025 | 6' | Director & Choreographer: Dk Fash
Jury Report:
“This short film plays with prejudices about black women in a unique, humorous and highly outspoken way, challenging us to put an end to them once and for all. An allegory of prejudices swept away by blatant female energy. The intriguing, liberating power of the black female body, set within an old church expresses itself as a form of redemption. Pure and powerful in dance and visual language. An expression of emancipation, in which self-affirmation is celebrated with the camera as an additional dancer.”
Ashavari Majumdar – Artistic Director Manifest Dance-Film Festival, Choreographer
Feri de Geus – Choreographer, Programmer, Director Grand Cru Global
Daphne Lucker – Director, Photographer
International Short Doc Competition
The Cinedans Jury Award 2026 for Best International Short Doc Film goes to....
UNLESS WE DANCE | CO | 2023 | 14' | Director: Fernanda Pineda, Hanz Rippe
Jury Report:
“Our deserving winner is a film whose beauty lies in its unrelenting commitment to grace, joy, and wonder in the face of unspeakable violence. Its mise en scène shimmers and surges with kinetic energy, refusing to yield to the brutalities visited upon the bodies of youth, from cradle to the systemic urban grave. What emerges is neither denial nor consolation, but a profound insistence on life. Here, movement becomes more than expression. It becomes defiance, memory, survival, the body’s luminous refusal to disappear.”
“To encounter this work is to be moved and unsettled in equal measure. We are confronted, affirmed, indicted. We are asked not only to witness, but to reckon with the moral and political lethargy that makes such violence possible. The film calls us away from indifference, away from inertia, away from complicity, and toward a more difficult and urgent ethics of attention. Unless we move, unless we allow ourselves to be shaken from our slumber, what remains of our humanity? This is a paean to beauty under siege, an indictment of violence, and a work of rare force and tenderness. Before it, we can only feel humbled.
This winning film is Unless We Dance by Fernanda Pineda and Hanz Rippe.”
The award is endowed with 1.000 EUR prize money.
The Cinedans Jury Special Mention 2026 goes to....
Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black) | AU | 2023 | 25' | Director: Matthew Thorne, Derik Lynch
Nduka Mntambo – Head of the Master of Film, Researcher, Artist
Laura Stek – Audio & Filmmaker VPRO
Hadi Moussally – Artist, Filmmaker, Producer, Performer
Audience Award 2026
The Cinedans Jury Audience Best Fiction Film 2026 goes to....
THE APPLE DOESN’T FALL... | CN | 2025 | 18' | Director: Dean Wei | Choreographer: Shiyu Liu
The Cinedans Jury Audience Best Non Fiction Film 2026 goes to....
PACI | FR | 2024 | 33’ | Director & Choreographer: Juliette Roudet
Cinedans LAB Pitch Award 2026
The Cinedans LAB Pitch Award goes to...
LOVE OR DIE by Graham Clayton-Chance
Love Or Die is a dance film exploring grief, artistic inheritance and transformation. Drawing on the work of late queer dance pioneer Nigel Charnock, the film unfolds as an intense solo for camera performed by Adam Russell-Jones. Moving through archival materials and embodied reconstructions, the dancer navigates Charnock’s life, legacy and influence, guided by a former collaborator and close friend.
Nigel Charnock was a groundbreaking British dancer, choreographer and co-founder of DV8 Physical Theatre, known for his raw, fearless performances that fused dance, theatre and queer identity.
The award is endowed with 1.000 EUR prize money.
Jury
Carmen Cotofana – Artistic Director Bucharest Dance Film Festival
Cleo Xiong – Curator NOWNESS China
Andreas Hannes – Cinedans Artistic Director
Watch winning films online till April 5 on Cinedans WEB here
Cinedans FEST '26
For its 22nd edition, Cinedans selected 110 films from 53 countries. In addition, a presentation of VR and installations, talks, masterclasses, and an extensive online festival program on Cinedans WEB. Cinedans FEST '26 showcases the full breadth of contemporary dance film: urgent, idiosyncratic and deeply intertwined with the world around us.
FOCUS: India
Films, performance and a Masterclass exploring the richness and diversity of Indian dance, in collaboration with Manifest Dance Film Festival Pondicherry
International Shorts and Short Docs competitions
A sharp selection of the best dance films from the last two years!
New Dutch
Featuring the latest home-grown dance films in two exciting programs
Breaking the Chains #2
Exploring colonial legacies, freedom, and the body as an archive of history and resistance
Echoes of a Body of Work: De Châtel, Van Manen, Hauser & Hazekamp
Films from Dutch Dance Film Archive
XXXplicit Dance vol.2
A daring selection of dance films on eroticism, sexuality, and physicality
Features:
Bboy Wicket, Dimitris Papaioannou, Meg Stuart, Christian Guerematchi and Wider Than the Sky
Installations & VR
A showcase of international immersive works & VR in collaboration with Moovy Dance Film Festival Cologne
Watch winning films online till April 5 on Cinedans WEB here
Discover the full program of Cinedans FEST '26 here
Cinedans FEST ‘26 is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund, Stichting Dioraphte, Fonds 21, Performing Arts Fund NL, SEE NL, Cultuurfonds DigitALL, Stichting Pica, Gravin van Bylandt Stichting, The Netherland-America Foundation, Moovy Festival Cologne, Beamsystems and Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.
Cinedans receives regular funding from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
Campaign image: Marungka tjalatjunu (Dipped in black) by Matthew Thorne and Derik Lynch
OTHER NEWS
CANON Masterclass: Capturing Movement
Canon and Cinedans are inviting the renowned film director Tommy Pascal to share his expertise in a comprehensive masterclass.
Moving Media Lab Workshop - Movement through and with a lens
A hands-on workshop that introduces how to play with the spectator's gaze from the perspective of a lens.
The Winners of Cinedans FEST '24
During a festive ceremony on the closing evening, the following international prizes were awarded for best dance films 2024
