WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange docu wins special prize at Cannes 2025

Deni Oumar Pitsaev won the festival’s Golden Eye award for his autobiographical documentary “Imago,” which follows the filmmaker after he inherits a small patch of land in the Pankisi valley in Georgia, across the border from Chechnya in southern Russia.

During the two Chechen wars of 1994-1996 and 1999-2009, the region became a refuge for Chechen rebels and thousands of civilian refugees who crossed Georgia’s porous mountain border to flee the conflict.

Pitsaev — who grew up between Grozny, Saint Petersburg and Almaty, and is now based between Brussels and Paris — was also awarded a prize in the festival’s Critics’ Week section on Wednesday.

US director Eugene Jarecki was awarded a special jury prize for his documentary “The Six Billion Dollar Man,” about Assange, who has been in Cannes to promote the film but has not yet spoken publicly.

Assange has declined all interview requests, but the 53-year-old former hacker’s wife, Stella Assange, said he had “recovered” from his years in detention and would “speak when he’s ready.”

Assange was released from a high-security British prison in June last year after a plea bargain with the US government over WikiLeaks’s work publishing top-secret military and diplomatic information.

He spent five years behind bars fighting extradition from Britain and another seven holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he claimed political asylum.

Jarecki said his film aimed to correct the record about Assange, whose methods and personality make him a divisive figure.

“I think Julian Assange put himself in harm’s way for the principle of informing the public about what corporations and governments around the world are doing in secret,” Jarecki told AFP.