Fruit Gathering / Thit-thee Khu
Directed by: Aung Phyoe
Myanmar, Czech Republic, France, 2026

Jury Statement:
Fruit Gathering, which begins as a lush and meditative portrait of work and friendship before morphing, unexpectedly and organically, into a harrowing drama of obsession and queer desire.

The Guest / Gæsten
Directed by: Mads Mengel
Denmark, 2026

Jury Statement:
The Guest, a squirmingly funny yet precisely modulated drama that subtly raises questions about motherhood, filial duty and mental illness.

BEST DIRECTOR AWARD
Mads Mengel for the film
The Guest / Gæsten
Denmark, 2026

Jury Statement:
Mads Mengel for The Guest, for giving us a seat at the table with a superb ensemble of actors, orchestrated with great intelligence and tonal assurance.

BEST ACTRESS AWARD
Anna Schinz for the role in the film
A Happy Family
Directed by: Jan-Eric Mack
Switzerland, 2026

Jury Statement:
Anna Schinz, for her gripping, hauntingly restrained performance as a mother driven to desperate extremes.

BEST ACTOR AWARD
Ghassan Saad for the role in the film
Pipes Directed
by: Karim Kassem
Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 2025

Jury Statement:
Ghassan Saad, for fully inhabiting the role of a longtime village plumber who greets every setback with surprising warmth and gruff good humor.

PRÁVO AUDIENCE AWARD
Bára – Diary of a Rockstar / Bára Basiková

Directed by: Helena Třeštíková
Czech Republic, 2026

Lover, Not a Fighter / Milovník, nie bojovník
Directed by: Martina Buchelová
Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, 2026

Jury Statement:
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 director understand what it´s like to be young (she pulls of the Gen Z style without making it gimmicky, a rare feat!) and that one never stops growing up change is www.kviff.com constant, bringing both wonder and loss. The jury was refreshed by the film´s extraordinary lightness, how it refuses to take itself too seriously while also portraying essential themes – the absurdity of family, the delirium of young love, the apprehensions of aging – with luminous sincerity.

Incinerator / Shokyakuro
Directed by: Shuntaro Uchida
Japan, 2026

Jury Statement:
Here is a film of deceptive simplicity — its subtlety and lightness bely 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. We also applaud the generosity of this film: how fully it colors its world; how it accords all its characters grace even while showing us their imperfections; and how it caresses us, the audience, with its patient, loving touch.

PROXIMA BEST DIRECTOR AWARD
Efthimis Kosemund-Sanidis for the film
A Whole Person Almost / Enas olokliros anthropos schedon
Greece, Bulgaria, Germany, Cyprus, Romania, 2025

Jury Statement:
The Proxima Jury commends the director for using to cinema to capture and represent both: the cosmic and intimate aspects of life that cannot always be articulated or explained, but can only be deeply felt. He balances different tones with great deftness, bringing levity and a touch of magic to the serious subjects like disability, loss, and estrangement. We cannot wait to see what he does next.

PROXIMA SPECIAL MENTION
33 Steps / 33 krokov
Režie: Anna Domček, Šimon Domček
Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, 2026

Jury Statement:
33 Steps is an audacious film—one that, though inspired by an incident of brutal bigotry, goes beyond the simple narratives of victimizer and victims. Instead of reducing those who bear the brunt of racism to mere symbols, it goes deep into their inner lives and confront hard truths: about the nonlinearity of trauma, the nature of inherited fear and the difficulty of closure in a broken society. The jury commends Milan Daniel and his family for channeling their real lives into candid and vulnerable performances that never shy away from complexity and which demand our outrage instead of pity.

Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche, the only actress to have won Best Actress prizes in Cannes, Venice and Berlin, has received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the 60th KVIFF.

At the opening ceremony of the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, legendary actor and two-time Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema.

Three-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson, whose visual style shaped films by Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the 60th KVIFF.

Fotocredits © Slavomír Kubeš/​CTK/​dpa