MATERIA PRIMA wins German Documentary Film Music Award 2026
Germany 2026, 90 min., director: Jens Schanze, composition: Atena Eshtiaghi
Iranian composer Atena Eshtiaghi has been announced as the winner of the German Documentary Film Music Award 2026 for her music for the film MATERIA PRIMA directed by Jens Schanze. Sincere congratulations!
About the film: Europe’s hunger for lithium for electric cars and the energy transformation collides with Bolivia’s resources and 400 years of colonial history. Jens Schanze follows negotiations over mining and extraction rights while also drawing on the words of an indigenous chronicler from 1615. A film about resource justice and structures that stubbornly repeat themselves. S.B.
About the award winner: Iranian cellist and film composer Atena Eshtiaghi, born in 1989, studied classical music at the Tehran Conservatory of Music. She has also explored Persian music, electro, and jazz. Since 2007, she has worked as a soloist and orchestral musician, including with the Tehran Symphony Orchestra and the Iran National Orchestra. As a film composer, she has written the score for Pegah Ahangarani’s award-winning short documentary “I’m Trying To Remember” and for “Endless Borders,” among others. In 2024, she won the German Documentary Film Music Award for the first time for MY STOLEN PLANET. Atena Eshtiaghi lives in Hamburg. There, she founded the “Duo Azadi” with pianist Clara Haberkamp. She is also currently collaborating with singer and composer Golnar Shahyar.
Jury statement
"With her music for MATERIA PRIMA, Atena Eshtiaghi succeeds right from the start in giving additional depth to the film’s images and establishing a distinct narrative layer. The music operates as its own dramatic force that sensitively accompanies the film while at the same time enhancing it with dramaturgical precision. Over and again, it emerges organically from the sound design and blends seamlessly with the visual language.
The composition never seems arbitrary or ornamental but clearly thought out and coherent in its structure. It doesn’t thrust itself into the foreground but nonetheless has a great impact. With sensitivity, it conveys emotional nuances – sometimes in a delicate and restrained way, sometimes incisively and insistently. It is precisely this balance of subtlety and expressiveness that noticeably raises the film’s overall effect to a higher level.
This year’s 2026 German Documentary Film Music Award goes to Atena Eshtiaghi for her music for the film MATERIA PRIMA."
- The 2026 jury of the German Documentary Film Music Award
- Press release on the winner of the German Documentary Music Award 2025
- The nominees 2026
The film at the festival
The winning film MATERIA PRIMA will be screened at the 41st DOK.fest München in May 2026:
The German Documentary Film Music Award will be presented at a festive award ceremony with film screening on Sunday, 10 May 2026 at 8 pm at the Audimax, HFF Munich.
An award for the score of reality
The German Documentary Film Music Award is presented annually to honor a composition that blends outstandingly well with the narrative of a documentary film, and will be awarded for the fourteenth time in 2026. It sees itself as a platform for the work of composers and the value of music as a narrative level in documentary film.
The prize is endowed with 5,000 euros and honours the team of filmmaker and composer. The German Documentary Film Music Prize is sponsored by the Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung and supported by the Förder- und Hilfsfonds des Deutschen Komponistenverbandes DKV.
Many thanks to our award donors and funders:
