Karlovy Vary Film Fest Awards Go to ‘Fruit Gathering,’ ‘The Guest,’ ‘Lover, Not a Fighter’ and ‘Incinerator’
tags:Aung Phyoe’s Fruit Gathering won the Grand Prix — Crystal Globe, the top award, at the closing ceremony of the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF).
The Special Jury Prize went to Mads Mengel’s The Guest, starring Trine Dyrholm (The Girl With the Needle, Poison), Simon Bennebjerg (The Pact, Promised Land) and Josephine Park (The Nurse, Oxen).
The main competition jury lauded Fruit Gathering as “a lush and meditative portrait of work and friendship before morphing, unexpectedly and organically, into a harrowing drama of obsession and queer desire.” It also said that The Guest is “a squirmingly funny yet precisely modulated drama that subtly raises questions about motherhood, filial duty and mental illness.”
Mengel also won best director for The Guest, with the jury lauding him “for giving us a seat at the table with a superb ensemble of actors, orchestrated with great intelligence and tonal assurance.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s review of The Guest noted that “Trine Dyrholm gives a scorcher of a performance in a gutsy Danish party-gone-wrong drama,” also highlighting: “The most audacious move here may be Mengel and co-screenwriter Christian Bengtson’s choice to write something that will inevitably invite comparisons with Festen (The Celebration), arguably the most notorious Danish-language film of the last 30 years, which similarly revolved around a bougie gathering disrupted by angry revelations.
Meanwhile, the best actress honor went to Anna Schinz for her role in the Swiss social drama A Happy Family from director Jan-Eric Mack. And the best actor award was bestowed upon Ghassan Saad for his role in Lebanese director Karim Kassem’s Pipes. And Bára — Diary of a Rockstar, directed by Helena Třeštíková, won the Právo Audience Award.
The fifth edition of Karlovy Vary’s Proxima competition, which focuses on bold works by young filmmakers and renowned auteurs alike, saw Slovak director Martina Buchelová’s Lover, Not a Fighter crowned the Grand Prix winner, while the Special Jury Prize was awarded to Japanese director Shuntaro Uchida’s Incinerator.
“In a world of cinema where grandiose ambitions, particularly the masculine kind, are overvalued, this beautiful film arrives tenderly, gathering the quotidian moments and relationships that make up the substance of life into a film at once thrillingly familiar and original,” the Proxima jury said about Lover, Not a Fighter. “The director understands what it’s like to be young — she pulls off the Gen Z style without making it gimmicky, a rare feat! — and that one never stops growing up, change is constant, bringing both wonder and loss.”
About Incinerator, the jury said: “Here is a film of deceptive simplicity — its subtlety and lightness belie layers of poetry and profundity. The director beautifully adopts the perspective of an unusual young girl who says little, but senses everything; like a Richter scale, her face records the unspoken tensions and tremulations of everyone around her.”
The best director honor in the Proxima competition went to Efthimis Kosemund-Sanidis’ A Whole Person Almost. And a Proxima Special Mention went to Anna and Šimon Domček’s 33 Steps.
Meanwhile, the Grand Prize of the Ecumenical Jury went to Tonia Mishiali’s The Lion at My Back. The FIPRESCI prize for the best film in the Crystal Globe Competition was awarded to Ivan Ostrochovský’s Only Beautiful Things to Look at, while the FIPRESCI honor for the best film in the Proxima Competition went to Mate Ugrin’s Petty Thieves.
The double anniversary edition of the fest in the Czech spa town, which also celebrated its 80th year in existence, wrapped on Saturday with more star power. Juliette Binoche was honored with the KVIFF Crystal Globe Award for her “outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema,” while Jeffrey Wright, who had on Friday met the press, received the President’s Award.
KVIFF 2026 brought a parade of stars to the picturesque Czech spa town, including Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, A Real Pain), Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and son Travis, Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Bride!, The Lost Daughter), Harvey Keitel (Mean Streets, Reservoir Dogs), legendary cinematographer Robert Richardson and Dustin Hoffman (The Graduate, Rain Man).