Cannes Lions 2025: Digital, Film and Industry Craft winners /

In this year’s craft winners, Telstra took home the Grand Prix in Film Craft, the medical educational initiative IDOMED bagged the top prize in Industry Craft, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was awarded the Digital Craft Grand Prix.  

Telstra has won the Grand Prix in Film Craft at Cannes Lions for its Better On A Better Network campaign, created by Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, +61 and OMD Australia.

To highlight its extensive coverage across Australia, Telstra launched 26 short stop-motion films, each featuring a remote location in Australia and the quirky flora and fauna characters who benefit from better network service – from Tasmanian devils to goth cockatoos and blokey wattle flowers.

The 15-second spots were voiced by real Australians from the rural communities they represent, grounding the campaign in local culture. Directed by Jeff Low and animated by Tobias Fouracre (known for his work on Fantastic Mr Fox), the series used an interview-style format reminiscent of Aardman Animation’s Creature Comforts, balancing craft with absurdist humour.

The campaign debuted across Channel 9’s coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. 

Jury president Ali Ali, film director and co-founder of Good People Films, described the winning campaign as a collection of carefully crafted pieces, where the writing felt measured, never overdone, with humour that landed effortlessly. ‘It was an obvious labour of love,’ he added, praising the craft and restraint that set the work apart.

Speaking about the winning campaign, Ali said that in the middle of ‘this AI craze we’re all going through, it was a breath of fresh air to find something that’s handmade with love, diligently and painstakingly’. The work, he said, was ultimately ‘fun, simple, and deeply human’.

Caption For Intention has taken the Grand Prix for Digital Craft. The campaign introduces a redesigned captioning system that helps Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences experience not just the words, but the emotion, tone and rhythm of film and TV. Built through months of testing and co-creation with the Deaf community, it uses animation, colour and expressive typography to fix what traditional captions have missed for decades.

The work was created by FCB Chicago, in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Chicago Hearing Society and Rakish Entertainment.

Jury president Kentaro Kimura, international chief creative officer at Hakuhodo, said of the winner: ‘It uncovered a long overlooked challenge and addressed it with obsessive passion and creativity.’

He outlined three key themes that emerged during judging. First, the fusion of AI and creativity. Many entries used AI and data, and while that trend has been building, this year the jury really felt its acceleration. Kimura said: ‘What made the difference between the top tier work and the rest was where the human creativity and the technology truly fused. The most compelling works didn’t just use AI. They understood AI deeply and applied it in a way that served its core purpose, and at the same time, the expression and experience that they created couldn’t have existed without AI.’

Second, he noted that while digital craft is becoming dramatically more advanced and complex, ‘in the end, it’s ordinary people who use and experience it.’ Which is why, he said, accessibility and simplicity matter more than ever.

Lastly, Kimura spoke about obsessive passion in craft: ‘I realised that craft ultimately needs love, the desire to bring someone joy, to change someone’s everyday life, to brighten some of the future. And to achieve that, we need a kind of obsessive madness, obsessively researching, prototyping, refining, failing and trying again. That is a very essential craft today.’

Instituto de Educação Médica (IDOMED) picked up the Grand Prix in Industry Craft for its campaign Nigrum Corpus by Artplan, São Paulo. The campaign is a collaboration with the initiative for social and environmental responsibility, Instituto Yduqs, to raise awareness about racism in Brazil’s healthcare system. 

Alongside the film, the organisation created a book based on real testimonies that highlights biases within the health field, revealing that the origin of the problem already exists in the training of health professionals.

Jury president Matthias Spaetgens, CCO at Scholz & Friends, said, ‘When you take a look at the Lions, we have examples for unbelievable creative copywriting, illustration, typography, photography, art direction, and all these 22 Lions we awarded show these different aspects and facets of craft. And not only that, we awarded work from just done by a simple lead pencil to the use of AI.’

As for why Nigrum Corpus took the Grand Prix, ‘everything came together in a magical way, all these facets of craft, from illustration, topography, copywriting, storytelling and also book design’. He also stressed the beauty of the physical object, adding, ‘I hope you have the opportunity to hold it in your hands, because it was what really touched us here.’

Film Craft Gold winners / 

Donkey for Telstra by Revolver, Sydney

A Tale As Old As Websites for Squarespace, by Squarespace, New York

A$AP Rocky: Tailor Swif for A$AP Rocky by Iconoclast, Los Angeles

Paris Paralympics 2024: Considering What? for Channel 4 by Biscuit Filmworks, London, 4Creative, London

Guao Guao for Desperados, by LePub, Milan

Telstra – Better On A Better Network for Telstra by Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, Sydney

Renault – Argentina, Renault by Publicis Conseil, Paris

Find Your Friends for Apple by Apple 

Considering What? for Channel 4 by Work Editorial, London, 4Creative, London

Digital Craft Gold winners /

Tree Correspondents for Hyundai by FCB New York

Industry Craft Gold Lions winners /

The Hidden Eye Test for 1001 Optometry by VML, Sydney

No Labels for Nikka Whisky by Dentsu, Tokyo

Project 4270 for Banco De Chile by BBDO Chile, Santiago

Winning isn’t Comfortable for Nike by Wieden + Kennedy, Portland