The 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival wrapped up on July 12 after screening 108 features, 23 documentaries, and 44 shorts across 465 showings.

With more than 128,000 tickets sold, the Czech festival once again cemented its place on the global film calendar, just after Cannes and ahead of Venice.

The festival’s top honor, the Crystal Globe, went to “Better Go Mad in the Wild”, directed by Miro Remo (Czech Republic/Slovak Republic). The film’s team received a $25,000 prize.

Iran’s “Bidad”, by Soheil Beiraghi, won the Special Jury Prize and $15,000. Jurors praised its bold narrative and genre-blending story of a couple on the run through Tehran, describing it as “shot through with punk energy” and closing on a hopeful note.

The Best Director awards were shared between Vytautas Katkus for “The Visitor” (Lithuania, Norway, Sweden) and Nathan Ambrosioni for “Out of Love” (France).

Acting awards went to Pia Tjelta for her performance in Norway’s “Don’t Call Me Mama”, and Àlex Brendemühl in Spain’s “When a River Becomes the Sea.” Kateřina Falbrová earned a Special Jury Mention for her role in “Broken Voices” (Czech Republic/Slovak Republic).

The audience-favorite Právo Award went to the Czech documentary “We’ve Got to Frame It!”, a tribute to long-time festival president Jiří Bartoška.

In the Proxima competition, the top prize went to “Sand City” (Bangladesh), directed by Mahde Hasan, which the jury described as a “trembling map of the strange, abandoned, and intimate.” A Special Jury Prize went to Colombia’s “Forensics”, lauded for resisting commercialized narratives of Latin American violence with “truth, ethics, and poetry.”

Belgium’s “Before / After”, by Manoël Dupont, received a special mention for its gentle story of a hair transplant road trip turned love story, praised for its “warmth and humility.”

Among honorary awards, Stellan Skarsgård received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution. Czech editor Jiří Brožek and actors Vicky Krieps, Dakota Johnson, and Peter Sarsgaard were honored by the festival’s president.

Other jury recognitions included:

• Ecumenical Jury Grand Prize: “Rebuilding” (USA), by Max Walker Silverman
• Commendation: “Cinema Jazireh” (Turkey/Iran/Bulgaria/Romania), by Gözde Kural
• Europa Cinemas Label Award: “Broken Voices” by Ondřej Provazník
• FIPRESCI Awards: “Out of Love” (France) and “Before / After” (Belgium)
• In the Eastern Promises industry section, Croatia’s “History of Illness” won the Midpoint Development Award. The Eurimages Co-Production Awards went to “Battalion Records” (Romania) and “In Vacuo” (Ukraine/Germany).

The next edition — the festival’s 60th — is scheduled for July 3–11, 2026.

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