Director Aung Phyoe’s “Fruit Gathering” won the top prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Saturday, taking home the Crystal Globe and $25,000 in prize money to be split between the director and the film’s producers.
Set in contemporary Myanmar and unfolding across several seasons,”Fruit Gathering” traces the slow-burning queer longing between two young women who leave their rural homes to become their families’ breadwinners in the city’s garment factories. Weaving together themes of class, gender and sensual deprivation, the film marks a confident feature debut.
In a statement, this year’s jury hailed its Crystal Globe winner 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 jury — comprising The New Yorker film critic Justin Chang, “Tiger Stripes” director Amanda Nell Eu, sound designer and “Star Wars” alum Pavel Rejholec, “Raw” and “Faces Places” producer Nadia Turincev and filmmaker Eskil Vogt — also singled out Mads Mengel “The Guest,” awarding the Danish drama the Special Jury Prize, worth $15,000, while naming Mengel Best Director.
The jury described “The Guest” as “a squirmingly funny yet precisely modulated drama that subtly raises questions about motherhood, filial duty and mental illness,” and cited Mengel “for giving us a seat at the table with a superb ensemble of actors, orchestrated with great intelligence and tonal assurance.”
Acting prizes went to “A Happy Family” star Anna Schinz, recognized “for her gripping, hauntingly restrained performance as a mother driven to desperate extremes,” and to “Pipes” lead Ghassan Saad, honored “for fully inhabiting the role of a longtime village plumber who greets every setback with surprising warmth and gruff good humor.” That the nonprofessional actor is playing a lightly fictionalized version of himself in “Pipes” only makes the honor sweeter. After all, he’s had a lifetime to prepare.
Among the festival’s other winners, “Bára – Diary of a Rockstar” claimed the Právo Audience Award, giving acclaimed documentarian and former Czech culture minister Helena Třeštíková yet another Karlovy Vary triumph. Meanwhile, Martina Buchelová’s coming-of-age romance “Lover, Not a Fighter” took top honors in the festival’s Proxima competition.
Rounding out the Proxima winners, Shuntaro Uchida’s “Incinerator” received the Special Jury Prize, Efthimis Kosemund-Sanidis was named Best Director for “A Whole Person Almost,” and Anna and Šimon Domček earned a Special Mention for “33 Steps.”
This year marked KVIFF’s 80th anniversary and 60th edition, twin milestones celebrated with a retrospective program and a strong U.S. presence. Juliette Binoche, Dustin Hoffman and cinematographer Robert Richardson received Crystal Globes for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, while Jesse Eisenberg, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jeffrey Wright were presented with the Festival President’s Award. Other high-profile international guests included Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Harvey Keitel and David Chase. The festival ran from July 3–11.