Miro Remo’s Better Go Mad in the Wild gained the Grand Prix – Crystal Globe, the highest award, on the closing ceremony of the 59th version of the Karlovy Differ Worldwide Movie Competition (KVIFF) on Saturday, the place Stellan Skarsgård was additionally honored with the KVIFF Crystal Globe Award for his “excellent inventive contribution to world cinema.” The Particular Jury Prize went to Iranian filmmaker Soheil Beiraghi‘s fourth characteristic, Bidad (Outcry), whose announcement the fest had held again to make sure the security of its creators.
This yr’s jury, consisting of Nicolas Celis, Babak Jalali, Jessica Kiang, Jiří Mádl, and Tuva Novotny, lauded the “delightfully ingenious documentary” Higher Go Mad as “a humorous valentine to the fading artwork of being true to your self” and “a portrait of bickering twin brothers who could dwell a bizarre, off-grid life on their dilapidated farm, however who, in a world as mad as ours, really could be the sanest folks on Earth.”
Concluded the jury: “Within the life-style it portrays, but in addition within the filmmaking dangers it takes and the raucously loving brotherhood it admires, Higher Go Mad within the Wild seems like a gulp of contemporary, woody air, or a fast dip in an out of doors pond, or a second of contemplation as a cow chews in your beard. Briefly, it seems like being free.”
In the meantime, the jury known as Bidad, a couple of Gen Z woman who sings within the streets regardless of guidelines that forbid that in Iran, “as brave in its continually surprising narrative turns, because it careens by completely different style terrains as energetically because it rolls by the completely different suburbs of Tehran. It concluded: “Morphing from social-injustice thriller into household melodrama right into a triumph-over-adversity arc, it’s most putting as a gonzo lovers-on-the-run romance, shot by with punk vitality and spiky persona that ends on an ambivalent but optimistic observe — as a result of the place there’s this a lot life, there’s hope.”
‘Bidad’
Courtesy of KVIFF
This yr’s finest director award went to 2 movies: Lithuanian cinematographer Vytautas Katkus’ characteristic directorial debut The Customer, a meditation on solitutde, in addition to Nathan Ambrosioni’s Out of Love, a mirrored image on household and co-existence.
Lauding the “deeply spectacular directorial statements,” the jury stated that Katkus “really exploits the artistic freedom {that a} director maybe solely ever correctly enjoys with their first movie, displaying an uncompromised, idiosyncratic imaginative and prescient that’s each dazzlingly exact in its element and dreamily peculiar as entire.” It additionally famous that Ambrosioni “demonstrates a maturity, compassion and polish far past his years within the transferring and fantastically crafted Out of Love through which a wealthy but understated presentation that permits the terrific all-ages performing ensemble to ship intensely felt, empathetic performances.”
Within the performing classes, Pia Tjelta was honored with the perfect actress award for her function within the political relationship drama Don’t Name Me Mama, Àlex Brendemühl gained the perfect actor honor for his function within the rape drama When a River Turns into the Sea, and Kateřina Falbrová acquired a particular jury point out for her function within the sexual abuse drama Damaged Voices.
And the Právo Viewers Award winner ended up being the fest opening movie, We’ve Received to Body It! (A Dialog With Jiří Bartoška in July 2021), that includes insights and laughs courtesy of the long-term fest president who died not too long ago.
The fourth version of Karlovy Differ’s Proxima competitors, which focuses on daring works by younger filmmakers and famend auteurs alike, revealed Bangladeshi director Mahde Hasan’s Sand Metropolis, a film about harsh life in a metropolis, as its winner, determined by the jury of Yulia Evina Bhara, Noaz Deshe, Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias, and Marissa Frobes. “A realm unknown, the place structure breathes and silence screams,” it wrote. “Time drips sideways on this fractured hourglass, and colour spills like reminiscence. In Sand Metropolis, cinema turns into a trembling map of the unusual, deserted, and intimate on the fringe of sense.”
‘Sand Metropolis’
Courtesy of KVIFF
In the meantime, the Proxima Particular Jury Prize was bestowed upon Federico Atehortúa Arteaga’s Forensics, an experimental essay on lacking individuals. “This award goes to a movie that carries ahead the custom of swimming in opposition to the present of globalized violence — with fact, with ethics, and above all, with poetry,” the jury stated.
And Manoël Dupont’s Earlier than/After, which explores baldness and queer id, acquired a particular point out within the Proxima lineup.
The non-statutory awards at KVIFF, particularly the Europa Cinemas Label honor for the perfect European movie at KVIFF 2025, the Fipresci Award, in addition to the Grand Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, put a highlight on three completely different films.
Rebuilding, directed by Max Walker-Silverman and starring Josh O’Connor, gained the Ecumenical Jury’s Grand Prize, whereas the jury gave a commendation to Cinema Jazireh, directed by Gözde Kural. The Europa Cinemas Label honor went to Damaged Voices, and the Fipresci honor was awarded to Earlier than/After.
The 2025 version of the Karlovy Differ fest, which has a fame as Central Europe’s largest cinema celebration, had opened with the presentation of KVIFF President’s Awards to Peter Sarsgaard and Vicky Krieps, a movie about late long-time KVIFF president Jiří Bartoška, and a live performance by U.Ok. act La Roux.