The 59th International Karlovy Vary Film Festival passed by in a blur this week after playing host to a stream of largely uncontroversial guests compared to previous years. With appearances by Festival President’s Award winners Vicky Krieps, Dakota Johnson and Peter Sarsgaard, plus a special cameo from Michael Douglas, it was left to Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution winner Stellan Skarsgård to generate headlines, which he did rather spectacularly by describing venerated Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman as “manipulative” and “the only person I know who cried when Hitler died”.
The lineup of this year’s Crystal Globe Competition was similarly strong, a fact reflected in the sharing out of the awards; all the word-of-mouth titles seemed to win something, which isn’t always the case. That said, the winner was something of a surprise at a festival where the strongest films featured female leads (Broken Voices; Don’t Call Me Mama).
From Slovakian director Miro Remo, it tells the story of František and Ondřej Klišík, two eccentric siblings who have chosen to leave in their own unique world. Commenting on their decision, the jury called it “A funny valentine to the fading art of being true to yourself”, adding: “Miro Remo’s delightfully inventive documentary is a portrait of bickering twin brothers who may live a weird, off-grid life on their dilapidated farm but who, in a world as mad as ours, actually might be the sanest people on earth.”
The full list of winners and juries are below…
CRYSTAL GLOBE COMPETITION
CRYSTAL GLOBE JURY
Nicolas Celis
Babak Jalali
Jessica Kiang
Jiří Mádl
Tuva Novotny
GRAND PRIX – CRYSTAL GLOBE (25,000 USD)
Better Go Mad in the Wild
Directed by Miro Remo (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2025)
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE (15,000 USD)
Bidad
Directed by Soheil Beiraghi (Iran, 2025)
BEST DIRECTOR AWARD – awarded ex-aequo
Vytautas Katkus for The Visitor (Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, 2025)Nathan Ambrosioni for Out of Love (France, 2025)
BEST ACTRESS AWARD
Pia Tjelta for her role in the film Don’t Call Me Mama
Directed by Nina Knag(Norway, 2025)
BEST ACTOR AWARD
Àlex Brendemühl for his role in the film When a River Becomes the Sea
Directed by: Pere Vilà Barceló (Spain, 2025)
SPECIAL JURY MENTION
Kateřina Falbrová for Broken Voices
Directed by Ondřej Provazník(Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2025)
PRAVO AUDIENCE AWARD
We’ve Got to Frame It! (a conversation with Jiří Bartoška in July 2021)
Directed by Milan Kuchynka, Jakub Jurásek (Czech Republic, 2025)
PROXIMA COMPETITION
PROXIMA JURY
Yulia Evina Bhara
Noaz Deshe
Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias
Marissa Frobes
PROXIMA GRAND PRIX (15,000 USD)
Sand City
Directed by Mahde Hasan (Bangladesh, 2025)
PROXIMA Special Jury Prize (10,000 USD)
Forensics
Directed by: Federico Atehortúa Arteaga (Colombia, 2025)
PROXIMA Special Mention
Before/After Directed by: Manoël Dupont (Belgium, 2025)
NON-STATUTORY AWARDS
THE ECUMENICAL JURY AWARD
THE ECUMENICAL JURY
Achim Forst
Rose Pacatte
Ida Tenglerová
GRAND PRIZE OF THE ECUMENICAL JURY \
Rebuilding
Directed by Max Walker-Silverman (USA, 2025)
COMMENDATION OF THE ECUMENICAL JURY
Cinema Jazireh
Directed by Gözde Kural (Turkey, Iran, Bulgaria, Romania, 2025)
EUROPA CINEMAS LABEL AWARD
EUROPA CINEMAS LABEL JURY
Daniel Krátký
Slavomíra Macáková
Wouter Timmermans
EUROPA CINEMAS LABEL AWARD
Broken Voices
Directed by Ondřej Provazník (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2025)
FIPRESCI AWARD
FIPRESCI JURY
Helen Barlow
Ela Bittencourt
Bitopan Borborah
Patrick Fey
Lukáš Jirsa
Christos Skyllakos
THE FIPRESCI AWARD FOR THE BEST FILM IN THE CRYSTAL GLOBE COMPETITION
Out of Love
Directed by Nathan Ambrosioni (France, 2025)
THE FIPRESCI AWARD FOR THE BEST FILM IN THE PROXIMA COMPETITION
Before/After
Directed by Manoël Dupont (Belgium, 2025)
KVIFF EASTERN PROMISES WINNERS
KVIFF & MIDPOINT DEVELOPMENT AWARD (10,000 EUR)
JURY
Danijel Hočevar
Martin Horyna
Egle Vertelyte
History of Illness
Directed by David Gašo (Croatia)
EURIMAGES CO-PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT AWARD (20,000 EUR)
JURY
Josef Kullengård
Ilse Ronteltap
Zuzana Mistríková
Battalion Records
Directed by Ștefan Bîtu-Tudoran (Romania)
EURIMAGES SPECIAL CO-PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT AWARD (20,000 EUR)
In Vacuo
Directed by Yelizaveta Smith (Ukraine, Germany)
CONNECTING COTTBUS AWARD
JURY
Marjorie BendeckKatharina StummRadioAmateur Directed by Tomasz Habowski (Poland)
ROTTERDAM LAB AWARD
JURY
Facundo Lema
WINNER
Ondřej Lukeš, producer of Restless (Czech Republic)
MARCHÉ DU FILM PRODUCERS NETWORK AWARD
JURY
Yago Mateo
WINNERS
Michelle Brøndum Hauerbach, producer of Soyboy (Great Britain)
Genovéva Petrovits, producer of Democracy: Work In Progress (Hungary, Czech Republic, Germany)
WORKS IN DEVELOPMENT – KVIFF TALENTS
FEATURE POOL (120,000 CZK for further development)
Nameless
Directed and animated by Daria Kascheeva (Czech Republic)
Spirit Moose
Director: Tomáš Klein (Slovakia, Czech Republic)
Burnout
Director: Greta Stocklassa (Czech Republic)
CREATIVE POOL (50,000 CZK for further development)
Mould Directed and animated by Phillippe Kastner (Czech Republic)
Lost Boys
Directed by Dužan Duong (Czech Republic)
Remake
Director: Kateřina Letáková (Czech Republic)
A Siege
Director: István Kovács (Hungary)
This article was published by Damon Wise on 2025-07-12 13:32:00
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