The Heart of Europe International TV Festival & Forum 2025 concluded yesterday, with Polish productions taking home the majority of top honors in both its pitching competition and main festival awards. The event, which celebrates documentary, feature film, and series production across Central and Eastern Europe and is organized by Polish pubcaster TVP in Warsaw, announced its winners yesterday.

In the Best Pitch competition, the documentary Good Night, Princesses from Poland, directed by Iga Łapińska, was declared the winner. A Special Mention in the same category went to another Polish project, 60 Days in Humility.

The Polish success continued in the Feature Film pitch category, where The Swimming Pool by writer Marta Hopfer-Gilles and creative producer Jean-Nicolas Gilles-Hopfer won the top prize.

For Fiction Series, the winning pitch was The Last Divorce of Communism, a co-production between Latvia and Bulgaria, created by Teodora Markova and Stanislavs Tokalovs. The Czech Republic received two Special Mentions in this category for the series Persona and Burning Witches.

In the Festival Awards section, Polish broadcaster TVP secured the Golden Award for Feature Film with Go Against the Flow. The Silver Award was shared by The Magical Apple from Slovak and Czech broadcasters.

TVP also won the Golden Award for Fiction Series with Shadowplay, while the Silver Award went to Operation Sabre from Serbian pubcaster RTS.

The Documentary Film category saw another Golden Award for TVP with Just Hear Me Out, and a Silver Award for the same broadcaster with In the Rearview. A Special Mention was given to Blueberry Dreams from Georgia.

In Short Documentary, TVP's Are You There? won the Golden Award, with Suspilne Ukraine's First of All Human taking the Silver. A Special Mention was awarded to Verka’s Roses from Bulgaria.

For Children & Youth Programming, Czech Television won the Golden Award for Ela’s Top Secret Diary, while Latvian television's For Real? received the Silver Award.

The Digital Projects category was also won by Czech Television with Déčko’s Poetry Championship, and the Silver Award went to Unzip from Suspilne Ukraine.

The festival highlights the continued strength and collaboration of public broadcasters and production companies across the region.