Diana Allan’s Partition took the top Canadian film prize while Nadia Louis-Demarchais’ Recomposée was named the audience favourite at this year’s Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), which wrapped its 2025 edition on Sunday (Nov. 30).

Twelve juried prizes were awarded across the festival’s Canadian and international competition categories in a ceremony held on Saturday (Nov. 29), which followed the announcement of the winners in the Forum RIDM industry program earlier in the week.

Director-producer Allan’s Partition (pictured), an essay film that blends rephotographed British propaganda films about Palestine with the songs, voices and testimonies of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, was named the winner of the Grand Prize in RIDM’s National Feature Competition.

The Special Jury Prize in the category went to the RIDM world premiere Kindergarten, the new work by veteran documentarian Jean-François Caissy. The film is produced by Caissy and distributed by Les Films du 3 Mars.

First-time feature director Louis-Demarchais’ Recomposée (Pimiento Médias), meanwhile, was named the winner of RIDM’s People’s Choice Award, and also took home the festival’s Student Jury Award. Noble Arts is handling Canadian distribution.

The Magnus Isaacson Award for best Canadian social or political documentary was presented to Jonah Malak’s Spare My Bones, Coyote! (Nemesis Films), which follows a family that volunteers to search the U.S.-Mexico border for the bodies of migrants so that they can be returned to their families. Montreal’s H264 is on board as distributor and sales agent.

Rounding out the Canadian feature winners, director-producer Mustafa Uzuner’s Soul of the Foot claimed the trophy in the international New Visions Competition, while the festival’s closing night film, Andrés Livov’s The Blueberry Blues (Les Glaneuses), was voted the Women Inmate Jury Award.

In the festival’s National Short or Medium-Length Film Competition, the top prize went to Lloyd Wong, Unfinished, by Lesley Loksi Chan and Lloyd Wong. The Special Jury Prize in the category was presented to Nada El-Omari’s Momentum.

Finally, RIDM’s Soirée de la relève Radio-Canada Award was presented to the short Histoires d’anxiétés, by Adèle Schneider.

Image courtesy of RIDM