The 2018 Ethnocineca – Ethnographic and Documentary Film Festival – ran from May 4 to May 11 in the Austiran capital Vienna.

The festival’s International Documentary Award (IDA) went to ‘20th Circuit Suspects’ directed by Iranian filmmaker Hesam Eslami.

The jury statement for Eslami’s documentary reads: “In ’20th Circuit Suspects’, director Hesam Eslami develops a rich and intriguing portrait of a male adolescent gang that runs the streets of Tehran breaking into cars. The access he gained with the young criminals, who relate to him with candid familiarity, allows Eslami to show their work, lives, aspirations, without any judgment of values or superficial morality. The guerrilla style of film-making combined with a subtle reflexive approach suits the subject matter perfectly. Not simple another coming of age tale, what we have here is an engaging story of becoming a man under precarious social and political conditions in an increasingly alienating world.”

‘20th Circuit Suspects’ had its international premiere at Hot Docs, a prestigious festival documentary film in Toronto, Canada in May. It won the Crystal Simorgh for best documentary at the 35th Fajr Film Festival in Tehran in February.