UNKNOWN LABEL / THEIR EYES – Awards for a Successful EMAP Production

With UNKNOWN LABEL / THEIR EYES, French film artist Nicolas Gourault has realized one of the most successful EMAP productions of recent years. The work was created in 2023 at Werkleitz in Halle and, as an animated documentary film and video installation, addresses the narratives of precarious clickworkers in the Global South, whose invisible labor enables the training of artificial intelligences for self-driving cars.
The installation version UNKNOWN LABEL (2023) received an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2024 and was awarded the Human AI Award by the Kunstmuseum Bonn and Deutsche Telekom in 2025.
In its film version THEIR EYES, the project also achieved major international recognition: the film was nominated for the Golden Bear in 2025, received nominations for Best Documentary from the International Documentary Association (IDA), and is currently nominated for the César 2026 (Best French Short Film). Awards in 2025 include, among others, the Animation Award at the Festival Nouveau Cinéma (Canada), prizes at the Camden International Film Festival, IndieLisboa, the Champs-Élysées Film Festival, and the Firebird Awards of the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
THEIR EYES was also presented in 2025 on the renowned Op-Docs platform of The New York Times. The film is currently being screened on January 15 in Cologne as part of the work-in-progress symposium of the Documentary Film Initiative, with which Werkleitz cooperates.