Cutting Through Rocks wins the NPO Doc IDFA Audience Award 2025

Festival

Friday, November 21

By Staff

Cutting Through Rocks by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni has won the NPO Doc IDFA Audience Award 2025, the grand public prize of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). The prize will be awarded in Pathé Noord on Saturday, November 22, 20:00 followed by a special screening of the film. Tickets are still available!

NPO Doc IDFA Audience Award Winner: Cutting Through Rocks

Cutting Through Rocks is an award-winning documentary about Sara, the first female council member of a village in rural Iran, determined to break through patriarchal traditions. She fights to curb child marriage and, in her free time, teaches girls to ride motorbikes—something that quickly meets with resistance.

The winner of the NPO Doc IDFA Audience Award is chosen by festivalgoers, who cast their votes by email after the screenings of eligible films. The award, made possible for the fifth consecutive year by NPO, includes a prize of €5,000.

The final top 10

Film title	Average score
Cutting Through Rocks	4.82
My Word Against Mine	4.79
The Desert of the Real	4.78
2000 Meters to Andriivka	4.78
Gaza’s Twins, Come Back to Me	4.77
Whispers in the Woods	4.71
32 Meters	4.70
The Six Billion Dollar Man	4.68
Coexistence, My Ass!	4.68
A Fox Under a Pink Moon	4.63

IDFA 2025 attendance figures
IDFA 2025 runs until Sunday, November 23. In 2025, we expect a total of 255,000 visits to IDFA. The total number of audience and school student visits at this edition is expected to reach 165,000. The number of visits to the professional program during IDFA was approximately 30,000. This edition, we welcomed almost 2,600 professional guests to IDFA. Year-round, Het Documentaire Paviljoen generated approximately 60,000 visits in Amsterdam.