City of Poets* (produced by Manon Bovenkerk for near/by film) had its world premiere in the last year's Berlinale Shorts Competition, followed by international festival selections including Hong Kong International Film Festival, Vienna Shorts, Concorto, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, FIPADOC, FEST New Directors New Films (Winner Silver Lynx) and Documenta Madrid, where it won the Fugas Award. The film was also awarded the Golden Calf for Best Short Documentary at the 2024 Netherlands Film Festival, and was honoured as Best Iranian Short Film by FiDAN.

Through a collage of personal archive footage and photographs, City of Poets unfolds the story of a semi-utopian city where every street is named after a poet. As war erupts, new neighbourhoods are built to house refugees, and sweeping social changes leave the city’s residents lost in memories of forgotten poets.

Sara Rajaei is an Iranian-Dutch filmmaker and video artist based in The Hague. Her work explores the fluid nature of memory and time through narrative, imagery, and oral history. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, she completed a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam. In 2009, she was awarded the Prix de Rome Basic Award.

Read the SEE NL interview with Sara Rajaei here.

The European Film Awards are organized annually by the European Film Academy and honor the best of European cinema. The ceremony took place on 17 January 2026 in Berlin. Find out more about the award winners here.