FRONTLINE Documentary “Syria’s Detainee Files” Honored with Gracie Awards

MON., MARCH 23 — Syria’s Detainee Files, the 2025 FRONTLINE documentary exposing the scale and tactics of the Assad regime’s brutal system of detention, torture and killing of prisoners, has received two Gracie Awards.

The Alliance for Women in Media announced today that the feature-length documentary was the recipient of a Gracie Award in the “Documentary – News/Investigative [TV – National]” category. Sasha Joelle Achilli and Sara Obeidat, directors of the 2025 documentary, were also honored with a Gracie Award in the “Director – Documentary [TV – National]” category.

Syria’s Detainee Files investigates what happened to some of the hundreds of thousands of people detained by Assad’s regime during the Syrian war. A co-production with BBC, the award-winning documentary sheds new light on atrocities carried out during Bashar al-Assad’s reign, drawing on stunning firsthand testimony from former regime insiders and officers who carried them out, alongside the accounts of people who survived them.

Awarded annually, the Gracies “recognize individual achievement and exemplary programming created by, for and about women in news and entertainment in front of and behind the camera and microphone.”

“We are thrilled that Syria’s Detainee Files has been recognized by the Alliance for Women in Media with two Gracie Awards,” said Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE, the PBS documentary series produced at GBH in Boston. “This recognition speaks to the power of investigative documentary storytelling and to the extraordinary work of directors Sasha and Sara, whose fearless reporting exposed atrocities committed under Assad at Saydnaya, the regime’s most notorious prison.”

Aronson-Rath added, “We celebrate these wins alongside the rest of the film team, Amel Guettatfi and Saad Al Nassife, as well as with our partners at the BBC.”

Earlier this month, Syria’s Detainee Files was recognized with an Overseas Press Club Award.

Read a full list of this year’s Gracie Award winners here, and watch Syria’s Detainee Files below: