Human rights award for Georgia director

We are thrilled to announce that the film 9-Month Contract (Georgia), directed by Ketevan Vashagashvili, has won the HUMAN:RIGHTS AWARD 2025 at the CPH:DOX documentary film festival

9-Month Contract story follows a long-standing friendship between the director and the protagonist and evolves into a film about surrogate motherhood and dignity in an unregulated industry in Tbilisi.

For single mother Zhana, becoming a surrogate is the only path to a more dignified life for her teenage daughter, Elene. Without an education and working as a supermarket cashier, Zhana desperately tries to hide her growing pregnancy. But Elene is also growing up—what happens when she discovers the truth? Body and dignity are pushed to the limit in the fight against poverty.

The jury praised the film, stating:

“The winner in the Human Rights Competition is a film that portrays the relationship between a mother and her daughter with a radical intimacy and an outstanding tenderness.

Through its visual poetry the film balances delicately between the harshness of their situation and the humanity of Zhana and her intense love for her daughter.”

This remarkable film has been developed in cooperation with theCHANGE programme and was part of the first CHANGE cohort in 2021/2022. It was first pitched at CPH:FORUM in March 2022 and had its World Premiere at CPH:DOX this year.

The CHANGE programme seeks to increase equality and access in the international film market by fostering inter-regional co-productions. CHANGE is collaboration between IMS, EAVE, and CPH:DOX.

CHANGE is our co-production training course for documentary filmmakers made in collaboration with CPH:DOX, EAVE, and the National Film School of Denmark.

The training course consists of three week-long workshops culminating at CPH:DOX where the filmmakers present their projects at the industry section of CPH:DOX: the CPH:Forum which is an international market of TV-stations, distributers, sales agencies, co-producers, and funders.

In 2025 a total of eight documentary films in the making were presented by the producer and director – with the films coming from all the European Neighbourhood Countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

The first CHANGE group presented their films in March 2022.

Additional information: CHANGE Co-Production Training Course: Selection Announcement for 2024/2025 | IMS