Cinema for Peace Unveils Nominees for 2026 & supports the people of Venezuela
POPE LEO, SCARLETT JOHANSSON AND JAFAR PANAHI NOMINATED FOR CINEMA FOR PEACE & THE NOBLE PRIZE
Honorary guests include US President Bill Clinton and honorary chairwoman Hillary Clinton, contributions by Yuval Noah Harari, Nobel Peace laureates and heads of state including prime ministers of Israel and Palestine
“It Was Just an Accident” directed by Jafar Panahi
BERLIN - 25 years after 9/11 and the start of CINEMA FOR PEACE the Foundation has unveiled the first list of nominees for the Cinema for Peace Doves 2026, celebrating cinematic works that transcend entertainment to ignite impact, dialogue, and action on pressing global issues - such as Venezuela.
The nominations of the Cinema for Peace Foundation and its think tank, The World Forum include Pope Leo, Scarlett Johansson with "Eleanor the Great", and Jafar Panahi with "It Was Just an Accident". Chairman Jaka Bizilj informed the Iranian filmmaker personally in New York about his nomination one hour after he received the news that he would be imprisoned again for one year. After asking Panahi if he would nevertheless return to Iran, he replied: "I always went back, and I will go back again" while also reminding of his friend Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who is currently imprisoned.
Nominees for The Noble Prize include Leopoldo López, who should have become the legitimate President of Venezuela in 2014 and who now works in exile alongside Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado and in Madrid with Edmundo Urrutia, the man who truly won the most recent elections in Venezuela. Cinema for Peace had been advocating democracy in Venezuela since 2014 and with an advocacy event at the International Criminal Court in The Hague the release of Lopez, who fled finally in spectacular manner disguised as an electrician - a story for which Terry George has created a screenplay. The events of today might give Venezuela a chance for democracy, after the population suffered under Maduro to an extent that nearly 8 million citizens fled the country. “The time has come for Leopoldo Lopez, María Machado and the really elected President Edmundo Urrutia to free and lead their people,” Bizilj said after a recent exchange with the leaders in exile. “Neither Maduro’s proxies and vice president nor the US have the right to run the country, it needs to be legitimate elected leaders.” (LINK)
The nomination list for The Most Valuable Film of The Year includes "One Battle After Another" with Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio. Cinema for Peace created for Sean Penn with the help of CAA and ID PR in 2012 "Help Haiti Home", which raised over the years more than 50 million USD for his humanitarian work in Haiti, and it created with Leonardo DiCaprio and Mikhail Gorbachev the "Green Oscar" in 2009, which has featured winners such as "Common Ground" (2024), "Virunga" (2015) and "Racing Extinction" (2016). The most successful green filmmaker, who won three International Green Film Awards at Cinema for Peace, Richard Ladkani, is nominated this year together with his producer Leonardo DiCaprio for the film "Yanuni" about Indigenous leader Juma Xipaia’s courageous fight to save the Amazon. When Jane Goodall accepted the International Green Film Award by Cinema for Peace - in 2018 in Berlin for the documentary "Jane", she held up a small piece of the Berlin Wall and said: "This little piece is a sign of hope - and this is the only award that really means something…." One week before her death she spoke with the chairman of Cinema for Peace in New York to discuss plans, after saying on stage: "Humankind is not exempt from extinction."
Nominations include the documentary "Cover-Up" by Laura Poitras and MarkObenhaus about Seymour Hersh who exposed the truth about the war in Vietnam with the massacre of My Lai and Iraq with the torture publications of Abu Ghraib. The first nomination ever went to Scarlett Johansson, the second for the Holy Father: In 2024, Cinema for Peace had honoured Pope Francis in the Vatican for supporting Ukraine's freedom and efforts to protect civilians and children from the war with Russia together with President Zelenskyy and the film "Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom" with filmmaker EvgenyAfineevsky. The Cinema for Peace Award was one of only three honorings that Pope Francis accepted - in addition to an honour ten years earlier by the European Union and to the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction byPresident Joe Biden. The further honourees by Cinema for Peace in 2024 included Hillary Clinton, the 8th UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi, and in 2025 US President Bill Clinton, who was honoured with the "Noble Prize as the Peacemaker of the Century" for ending seven wars. His successor President Trump claimed the Nobel Award for himself afterwards for "ending eight wars" as calculated with presidential confidence. Cinema for Peace supported the administration’s peace work and the release of the Israeli hostages in October 2025 with its envoy Gershon Baskin, who restored in backchannel negotiations the crucial trust between the US side with Steve Wittkoff and the Hamas leadership, after the lethal strike in Qatar.
The Cinema for Peace Award Ceremony will take place on February 16th at Brandenburg Gate in combination with The World Forum on the Future of Democracy, AI/Tech and Humankind in Berlin, where the Berlin Wall fell. The list of nominated films will be extended by the end of January.
This year’s selection features a powerful line-up of storytellers who have turned their lenses towards the most pressing issues of our time - from global conflict and political turmoil to environmental crises and women's empowerment. Historically, the Cinema for Peace Dove has served as a reliable bellwether for the Academy Awards. In recent years, over 50 films honoured or nominated by Cinema for Peace earned Academy Award nominations, with more than 20 winning Oscars in major categories including Best Picture, Best International Feature, and Best Documentary Feature.
This alignment includes recent Best Picture and Best International Feature winners such as "I Am Still Here" (2024), "The Zone of Interest" (2023), "All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022), "CODA" (2021), "Parasite" (2019), "Green Book" (2018), and "Roma" (2018). The tradition of excellence dates back to the awards’ early years, with honourees including "Hotel Rwanda" (2004), "Good Night, and Good Luck" (2005), "The Lives of Others" (2006), "Milk" (2008), "Lincoln" (2012), and "12 Years a Slave" (2013). In the documentary category, Cinema for Peace has consistently identified non-fiction masterpieces early. This includes Oscar winners such as "20 Days in Mariupol" (2023), "Navalny" (2022), "Citizenfour" (2014), and "Searching for Sugar Man" (2012). Cinema for Peace saved some of the subjects of the documentary films, such as Navalny with a private rescue mission from Siberia to Berlin in 2020, as well as the likes of Kara-Murza, Whelan and Gershkovich by bringing the breakthrough in the prisoners exchange in 2024, after sending a Cinema for Peace envoy to chancellor Scholz, Erdogan and Putin, with the Tiergarten murderer in Berlin as key elements of the deal. The exchange was announced by US President Joe Biden, and Vladimir Kara-Murza became a member of the foundation board of Cinema for Peace’s The World Forum under the leadership of honorary chairwoman Hillary Clinton.
Cinema for Peace also produces valuable cinematic works and premiered at The World Forum 2025 a co-production with Clinton's film production company Hidden Light, "The Cranes Call", about the Clooney Foundation's work on war crimes in Ukraine. In 2024, Cinema for Peace premiered its co-production "The Quiet Diplomat" about the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, and encourages filmmakers to apply for funds to co-produce films with Cinema for Peace, which make a difference.
The nominees for the 2026 Cinema for Peace Dove are:
Cinema for Peace Dove for The Most Valuable Film of the Year
"Bugonia" directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
"Eleanor the Great" directed by Scarlett Johansson
"It Was Just an Accident" directed by Jafar Panahi
"Nuremberg" directed by James Vanderbilt
"One Battle After Another" directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
"Rental Family" directed by Hikari
"Sirât" directed by Oliver Laxe
"Two Prosecutors" directed by Sergei Loznitsa
"The Voice of Hind Rajab" directed by Kaouther Ben Hania
"The Wizard of the Kremlin" directed by Olivier Assayas
Cinema for Peace Dove for The Most Valuable Documentary of the Year
"2000 Metres to Andriivka" directed by Mstyslav Chernov
"Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media" directed by Matthew O'Neill & Perri Peltz
"Children in the Fire" directed by Evgeny Afineevsky
"Molly vs The Machine" directed by Marc Silver
"Of Mud and Blood" directed by Jean-Gabriel Leynaud
"Steal This Story, Please!" directed by Tia Lessin, Carl Deal
"The Road Between Us" directed by Barry Avrich
"The Last Twins" directed by Matthew O'Neill & Perri Peltz
"There Is Another Way" directed by Stephen Apkon
"This Ordinary Thing" directed by Nick Davis
International Green Film Award
"Ocean with David Attenborough" directed by Colin Butfield, Toby Nowlan & Keith Scholey
"Super Nature" directed by Ed Sayers
"Trade Secret" directed by Abraham Joffe
"The Last Dive" directed by Cody Sheehy
"Yanuni" directed by Richard Ladkani
Cinema for Peace Dove for Women's Empowerment
"Cutting Through Rocks" directed by Mohammadreza Eyni & Sara Khak
"The Last Ambassador" directed by Natalie Halla
"Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore" directed by Shoshannah Stern
"Prime Minister" directed by Lindsay Utz & Michelle Walshe
"Sally" directed by Cristina Costantini
"Young Mothers" directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
Cinema for Peace Dove for The Political Film of the Year
"Bodyguard of Lies" directed by Dan Krauss
"Cover-Up" directed by Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus
"Coexistence, My Ass!" directed by Amber Fares
"Facing War" directed by Tommy Gulliksen
"Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea" directed by Baby Ruth Villarama
"My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow" directed by Julia Loktev
"The Six Billion Dollar Man" directed by Eugene Jarecki
"The Librarians" directed by Kim A. Snyder
THE NOMINEES for THE NOBLE PRIZE as Guardians of Democracy include:
Pope Leo for "The Noble Prize as The Man of the Year"
Nancy Pelosi for "The Noble Prize as Guardian of Democracy"
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya for "The Noble Prize as Guardian of Democracy"
Albie Sachs for "The Noble Prize as Guardian of Democracy"
The World Liberty Congress with Masih Alenijad (the women who stood up to the Ayatollahs), Leopoldo Lopez (who led the revolution of Venezuela) & Garry Kasparov as "Guardians of Democracy"
The awards will be presented by Sir Bob Geldof, who created "Band Aid", "Live Aid", "We Are the World" and the biggest movement against extreme poverty in the history of mankind.
"The Voice of Hind Rajab" directed by Kaouther Ben Hania
"Cover-Up" directed by Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus
“One Battle After Another” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
“Trade Secret” directed by Abraham Joffe
"Can’t Look Away: The Social Media Case" directed by Matthew O'Neill & Perri Peltz
"The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue" directed by Barry Avrich
"Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore" directed by Shoshannah Stern
"The Last Ambassador" directed by Natalie Halla
"Yanuni" directed by Richard Ladkani