Tempo hosts several competitions in film and radio, both national and international. The prizes are awarded by our partners for the various competitions.

Stefan Jarl International Documentary Award, for best international documentary, Tempo Documentary Award, for best international feature length documentary. Tempo Short Award for best Swedish feature length documentary, Tempo Sound Award for best sound. New Doc for newly established filmmakers' documentaries, Tempo Pitch for best-performing pitch and Short Dox Radio for best radio documentary in short format.

Read more about the competitions and this years winners below.

Photos by Hedda Axelsson.

Stefan Jarl International Documentary Award

Stefan Jarl International Documentary Award is named after the Swedish documentary filmmaker, known for legendary documentaries such as Dom kallar oss mods/They Call Us Misfits and Ett anständigt liv/A Respectable Life. The award was established in 2012 with the purpose to highlight the best foreign documentaries from the past year and the winner receives €3 000. The award is presented with support from The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

Tempo Documentary Award

Tempo Documentary Award is Sweden’s largest documentary film competition where the winning director receives 75 000 SEK, which also receives a technology check from Dagsljus of SEK 50,000. The award is presented with support from the Swedish Film Institute.

Tempo Short Award

Tempo Short Award is a competition for best Swedish short documentary, where the winning director is awarded 25 000 SEK, which also receives a technology check from Dagsljus of SEK 10,000 The award is presented with support from the Swedish Film Institute.

New Doc

New Doc is an award for unestablished Swedish filmmakers. The award is given to a promising new documentary film director and consists of 50 000 SEK from regional film bodies Filmbasen/Film Stockholm, Film i Dalarna, Film i Öst, Film Västernorrland, FilmCloud/Förvaltningen för kulturutveckling, Filmregion Sydost and Kultur i Halland - Film.

Tempo Sound Award

The Tempo Sound Award was introduced in 2019. It is distributed to the short film, among the competition films in the Tempo Short Award, which has the most thoughtful and creative sound image. The prize consists of 60 000 SEK for use in Momento Studio, equivalent to approximately two weeks in the studio with sound designer. 

Short Dox Radio

In the Short Dox Radio competition, ten three-minute radio documentaries compete for the prize of 5 000 SEK. The winning entry may also participate in the Nordic shortdox competition which takes place in Denmark later this spring. New since 2019 is an upgrade of the prize in collaboration with the production company Munck, which offers studio time and a producer to the winner’s next audio documentary. The award was established by Bengt Bok, a professor of radio production at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. 

Tempo Pitch

Tempo Pitch is a competition where film directors and producers present their new projects in front of a jury and audience. The award consists of 90 000 SEK to be invested in the project. Tempo Pitch is arranged in collaboration with, and financed by, SVT Dokumentär, The Swedish Film Institute and Film Capital Stockholm.

Stefan Jarl International Documentary Award
- Jury 2023

Nathalie Álvarez Mesén is a screenwriter and director, with connections to both Costa Rica and Sweden. She began her career in physical theater and obtained her bachelor's degree in mime acting at the Theater Academy in Stockholm. Nathalie has subsequently attended Alma Manusutbildning and obtained an MFA in directing and screenwriting for film from Columbia University in New York. Her feature film debut Clara Sola, had its world premiere in Cannes 2021 at the Directors' Fortnight and won 5 Guldbaggar 2021 for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Photo and Sound.

Nathalie's short films have been shown at film festivals worldwide. Her short film Filip won "Best Film Under 15 Minutes" at the 2016 Palm Spring Shortfest, and Asunder was screened at the 2016 Telluride Film Festival.

Olivia Kastebring is a director who is drawn most strongly to documentary storytelling. Among her films is the documentary about the rapper Silvana Imam - Väck mig när ni vaknat, which won a Guldbagge for best documentary film in 2018. JUCK, about the dance collective of the same name, which was nominated for the starting cord in Gothenburg and won best short film in the Generation14+ category at the Berlinal film festival, Seattle's film festival etc. Her film Juliette is now available to watch on SVT and is about young adults who yearn for life to start again after the pandemic.

"I feel very excited and honored to be one of the jury members at this year's Tempo."

Danjel Nam is a trained journalist and has worked with storytelling in various forms, mainly with television, radio and text. Once upon a time, I participated with a radio documentary called Nyfiken på Gul, which received an honorable mention at the Tempo Documentary Festival in 2009. It meant a lot to me in my continued work to tell stories with new idioms and perspectives. Previously, I worked on a documentary series about the rap artist Rosh for SVT Edit, a TV series about dance choreographer Alexander Ekman's search for creativity Kreativitet med Alexander Ekman for SVT, P1 Documentary Alla älskar Stig, Documentary in P3 Four Olympics that changed the world: Olympics in Munich 1972 and P3 documentary special Nyfiken på Gul.

"The documentary has an important role to play. It should awaken something in you, make an audience understand or realize something new and see the world from a different perspective. Therefore, it feels very nice to be part of the jury work at this year's Tempo."

Tempo Documentary Award  - jury 2023

Gunnar Bolin

Kholod Saghir

Elisabet Gustafsson

Tempo Short Award - jury 2023

Ahang Bashi

Anastasia Kirillova

Santiago Mostyn

New Doc - jury 2023

Marta Dauliūtė

Balsam Karam

Daniel Aguirre

Short Dox Radio - Jury 2023

Jenny Bergman (Munck Studios)

Petra Koppla Dahlberg (last years winner)

Caroline Lagergren (Sveriges Radio)

Tempo Pitch - Jury 2023

Josefina Mothander, festival manager documentary film at the Swedish Film Institute
Rafael Franco, Film consultant short film & talent at Film Stockholm
Valentina Chamorro Westergårdh, Editor for SVT Documentary Short Film