Will Tizard Contributor Mark Cousins’ portrait of a British modernist painter, “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things,” took the Karlovy Vary Film Festival top prize Saturday, winning over a jury that included Christine Vachon and Geoffrey Rush with its perceptive take on art and seeing.
Cousins said the film’s subject, painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, “lived completely, truly and utterly – let’s try to do that.” Norwegian divorce story “Loveable” won the Crystal Globe jury prize, as well as three other awards categories, taking home the FIPRESCI, ecumenical and Europa Cinemas Label prizes with its nuanced look at a woman morphing into a new life.
Director Lilja Ingolfsdottir scored big with her first feature-length drama with “Loveable,” telling the audience at the Hotel Thermal Grand Hall the story helped her “find barriers we have built against connections.” The directing prize went to Nelicia Low for the Singapore/Taiwan/Poland production “Pierce,” an intricate account of a family torn by a fencing scandal that may also be a homicide mystery, while the actress nod went to Helga Guren of “Loveable.” Actor honors were shared by Ton Kas and Guido Pollemans for the lighthearted family tensions story “Three Days of Fish,” a Netherlands/Belgium film directed in monochrome tones by Peter Hoogendoorn.
The powerful refugee camp-set “Xoftex” won a special mention in the Crystal Globe race for its story of Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers stuck seemingly forever in a grim Greek facility, a French-German film by Noaz Deshe.
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