A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things is the winner of 58th KVIFF and Waves take the audience award

The winning film of the 58th KVIFF is the documentary A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things. It is an essayistic portrait of a British artist, with deep insights into the world of gender, climate, and creativity, by Scottish-Irish director Mark Cousins. “What a festival, what a hall, what a shock! My film is also about shock, about the transformation of artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham after she climbed a Swiss glacier in 1949. It’s about a woman who lived her life to the fullest,” said the recent Crystal Globe winner. 

Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s Loveable was also successful. It won the Special Jury Prize and the Best Actress Award for Helga Guren. “The award proves to me that as filmmakers we can go deep. Even though we’re afraid of each other, we still need each other,” said the Norwegian director, who also studied at the Prague Film School.

The Best Director Award went to Singaporean filmmaker Nelicia Low for her gripping atmospheric thriller Pierce. Ton Kas and Guido Pollemas share the Best Actor Award for their parts in the Dutch-Belgian film Three Days of Fish, exploring a father-son relationship. Guido Pollemans thanked for the award for both actors and read out his colleague’s speech from email during an impromptu etude.

The jury consisting of Christine Vachon, Geoffrey Rush (for whom the hall sang happy birthday), Sjón, Eliška Křenková and Gábor Reisz also awarded two Special Mentions. One stays in the Czech Republic thanks to Adam Martinec’s feature debut Our Lovely Pig Slaughter. Martinec thanked his father Karel, who played the main part in the film. “Besides being a great dad, you’re a great actor now, congratulations,” the director smiled. The other Special Mention went to the German-French drama Xoftex set in a refugee camp. Director Noaz Deshe likened the award to spotlight shining on his film, but more importantly, on the thorny issue of migration.

The Právo Audience Award went to Jiří Mádl’s distinctive film Waves which dominated the audience vote. The film revolves around the role of Czechoslovak Radio in the events of August 1968 and earned a respectable score of 1.05 and a total of 54,181 votes. Monika Kristl, the producer of the film, and Jiří Mádl, the director, thanked their families, colleagues and loved ones, and Mádl added: “I’d like to thank most of all the audience for surfing the festival waves with us.”

Proxima Competition was swept by Stranger, credit goes to Slovak filmmaker

The third year of the Proxima Competition offered works full of creative vigour and progressive cinematic expression. The jury included Bianca Balbuena, Wouter Jansen, Adéla Komrzý, Mohamed Kordofani and Daniela Michel.

Proxima Grand Prix went to Stranger, the episodic picture from hotel rooms directed by Zhengfan Yang, a Chinese director based in the USA. “The film’s title is Stranger, but I feel at home here with you,” he thanked the festival.

Proxima Special Jury Prize was awarded to director Paolo Tizón for his documentary Night Has Come, which maps the militant environment of contemporary Peru. Czech film March to May by Slovak director Martin Pavol Repka received a Special Mention. “The fact that we can stand here today is an incredible credit to the crew and actors who managed to step out of their comfort zone and make this film happen for free and make life difficult for themselves for almost a year. This award is for them,” Repka said.

At the end of the ceremony, festival president Jiří Bartoška invited everybody to the 59th KVIFF, which will take place from 4 to 12 July 2025. See you next year in Karlovy Vary!