Breakthroughs in
Storytelling Awards
Presented by the Digital Storytelling Lab at Columbia University School of the Arts
The Breakthroughs in Storytelling Awards recognize the year's most innovative narratives — signal achievements across the broad spectrum of media that rely on digital technologies, including film, video, journalism, advertising, games, art, theater, virtual reality, augmented reality, and experimental narratives.
Launched in 2016 to spur creativity and further the Lab's educational mission, the awards celebrate twelve narrative projects from around the world — the Digital Dozen. Out of these, the Breakthrough Prize goes to the project in any field that best exemplifies the spirit of inventiveness at work today, while the Special Jury Prize, consisting of a workshop at the Lab, is given at the discretion of the awards committee.
Winners are chosen by an interdisciplinary jury of Lab members and university faculty and announced each spring — first at Lincoln Center's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and online since the onset of the pandemic.
In citing these accomplishments, the Digital Storytelling Lab hopes to encourage creativity and innovation while furthering digital media's potential to break free of rigid, industrial-age classifications and evolve in ways that analog media could not. All twelve projects are archived every year in the Lab's online gallery.
Award History
View All Projects ↗Breakthrough Prize: DX Terminal (US)
Special Jury Prize: Artificial Sex (Germany/Switzerland)
Digital Dozen
Blue Prince, Coded Black, DeepFake, ENCODED, For Those Who Come After, Handle with Care, The Innocence of Unknowing, Kinder Scout, Reflections of Little Red Dot, The Talking Tree
Presented virtually on Sunday, April 26, by Caspar Sonnen, Shari Frilot, Steve Rosenbaum and Rita McGrath. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: Eno (US/UK)
Special Jury Prize: Kerosene Chronicles. Fungus (Russia/Slovenia)
Digital Dozen
Ancestors, Cat Royale, Ceci est mon coeur, Drinking Brecht, Eclipsing, Eno, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), The Game of Whispers, Grand Theft Hamlet, Kerosene Chronicles. Fungus, Lennox Mutual, Sweet Dreams
Presented virtually on Sunday, April 13, by Kat Mustatea, Sandra Rodriguez, Frank Rose and Lance Weiler. Followed by the Breakthroughs in Storytelling Summit at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center.
Breakthrough Prize: Consensus Gentium (UK)
Special Jury Prize: Reverse Rorschach (France)
Digital Dozen
Acts of Faith, Body of Mine, Borderline Visible, Consensus Gentium, House of Weaving Songs, No Save Points, Passing Electrical Storms, Port of Entry, Reverse Rorschach, Tulpamancer, Voidopolis, The Wolf and the Lamb
Presented virtually on November 13, 2024 by Merel van Helsdingen, Diana Williams, Matthieu Lorrain and Josh Goldblum. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: Dreamachine (UK)
Special Jury Prize: Unlearning Language (US/Japan)
Digital Dozen
Backup Ukraine, Bureau of Multiversal Arbitration, Channels, deepwork, Dreamachine, Evolver, Immortality, Song of the Ambassadors, Sutuverse, Theater of the Mind, Tomás Saraceno: Particular Matter(s), Unlearning Language
Presented virtually on April 5, 2023 by Baratunde Thurston, Andrea Lipps, Nicholas Fortugno and Shar Simpson. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: Life After BOB: The Chalice Study (US)
Special Jury Prize: Dates (UK)
Digital Dozen
Breonna's Garden, The Changing Same, Dates, Forest of Us, Life After BOB: The Chalice Study, Lizardly, Neurocracy, Obsidian, Otherly, Raining Stories, TM, Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix Up
Presented virtually on April 13, 2022 by Paola Antonelli, Aramique Krauthamer, Jake Sally and Ziv Schneider. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: Darkfield Radio (UK)
Special Jury Prize: Sylvia (US)
Digital Dozen
Agence, Darkfield Radio, Kentucky Route Zero Act V, Lollipop 2, Lure, Masterpiece: Nighthawks, Motto, Play Inside, Remote Tourism, Scarecrow VRC, Sylvia, The Third Day: Autumn
Presented virtually on April 7, 2021 by Jessica Brillhart, Erin Reilly, Fabien Riggall and Frank Rose. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: Facial Recognition Machine (US)
Special Jury Prize: Lithopy (Czech Republic)
Digital Dozen
Colony Sound, Death Stranding, Eva.stories, Facial Recognition Machine, Hypnospace Outlaw, Lithopy, Presence, Proto, Spectre, Traveling While Black, Un/tied Shoes, Where There's Smoke
Presented virtually on April 29, 2020 by Nicholas Fortugno, Illya Szilak, Nicholas Thompson and Karen Wong. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: WDCH Dreams (US)
Special Jury Prize: Queerskins: A Love Story (US)
Digital Dozen
1 the Road, Au-delà des limites, The Collider, Gris, Healing Spaces, The Horrifically Real Virtuality, JFK Unsilenced, The Lockdown, Queerskins: A Love Story, The Structure of Stand-up Comedy, WDCH Dreams, Where the Water Tastes like Wine
Presented April 3, 2019 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center by Yasmin Elayat, Justin Hendrix, Lina Srivastava and Frank Rose. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: The Oracles (UK)
Special Jury Prize: Zero Days VR (US)
Digital Dozen
Arden's Wake (prologue) and Maestro, The Believers Are But Brothers, Bloodless, Carne y Arena, Cosmic Top Secret, Did You Mean Mailchimp?, Everything, It Must Have Been Dark by Then, The Oracles, The Space We Hold, What Remains of Edith Finch, Zero Days VR
Presented April 4, 2018 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center by Ellen Lupton, Kevin Slavin, Karen Palmer and Noah Brier. Hosted by Lance Weiler and Frank Rose.
Breakthrough Prize: The Swedish Number (Sweden)
Special Jury Prize: Giant (US)
Digital Dozen
Collisions, Field Trip to Mars, Firewatch, Giant, Inside, Inside: Artists & Writers in Reading Prison, Laura Poitras: Astro Noise, Riot (prototype), Saydnaya: Inside a Syrian Torture Prison, The Swedish Number, These Memories Won't Last, Westworld (season 1) and DiscoverWestworld.com
Presented April 5, 2017 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center by Frank Rose.
Digital Dozen
Absolut Silverpoint, The Deeper They Bury Me, The Displaced, Door into the Dark, Freedom, The Hopscotch Opera, Karen, Life Is Strange, Mukto-Mona, Network Effect, The Pickle Index, This Is the Story of One Block in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn
Announced January 27, 2016. Presented February 23, 2016 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center by Frank Rose.
The Jury
The jury is made up of members of the Digital Storytelling Lab and faculty from across the Columbia community.
- Barrie AdlebergDSL Member; Adjunct Professor Film
- Christopher BaldassanoAssistant Professor of Psychology
- Nick BracciaDSL Member; Adjunct Professor of Film
- Hilary BrougherChair, School of the Arts Film Program
- Ira DeutchmanDSL Founding Member, Professor Emeritus of Professional Practice in Film
- Nicholas FortugnoDSL Member
- Rachel GinsbergDSL Member
- Sarah HenryDSL Member
- Susie KavanaughDSL Member
- Rob KingProfessor of Film; Faculty, Center for Comparative Media and Heyman Center for the Humanities
- Aaron MatysDSL Member
- Rita McGrathAssociate Professor, Columbia Business School; Faculty of Executive Education
- Romy NehmeDSL Member
- David K. ParkDSL Founding Member; Fellow, Center for the Management of Systemic Risk
- Luisel PeñaDSL Member
- Frank RoseDSL Awards Director and Senior Fellow, School of the Arts
- Maureen RyanDSL Member; Associate Professor of Film
- Shar SimpsonDSL Member; Adjunct Professor
- Dennis TenenDSL Member; Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature
- Magalis VideauxDSL Member
- Lance WeilerDSL Founding Director; Associate Professor of Film and Theatre
- Paul WoolmingtonDSL Member and Senior Fellow, School of the Arts