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Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s Israel-set family drama “Happy Holidays” won the top prize Sunday at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, taking home the Golden Alexander for best feature film.

Copti’s sophomore feature, his first film since his Oscar-nominated 2009 debut “Ajami,” premiered in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons sidebar, winning the best screenplay prize. Variety’s Siddhant Adlakha described it as “a piercing, realistic family drama, the inflection points of which reveal deep cultural and political dimensions surrounding gender and ethnicity.”

“Happy Holidays” follows four interconnected characters who share their unique realities, highlighting the complexities between genders, generations and cultures. The ensemble cast — comprised of Arab and Jewish characters alike — creates a multifaceted portrait of life in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.

The Thessaloniki jury, which included filmmaker and producer Sara Driver (“Boom for Real”), filmmaker Denis Côté (“Vic + Flo Saw a Bear”) and producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis (“How to Have Sex...

An air of anticipation and intrigue surrounded Noaz Deshe’s film Xoftex as it swiftly won a Special Jury Mention at the Crystal Globe Competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The groundbreaking film held its world premiere to packed audiences at the festival’s Grand Hall, earning enthusiastic applause and standing ovation, proving to be the talk of the town right from the beginning.

The film didn’t just score with the audience, but also with critics alike. The first batch of reviews lauded the film’s unique take on the refugee crisis. Damon Wise of Deadline celebrated the film for its ability to portray “the disorientation of the stateless mind” in a potent and unorthodox way.

Laurence Boyce from Screen Daily appreciated the offbeat style of storytelling that broke the conventional shackles, offering a fresh outlook on refugee narratives. In a similar vein, Susan Gottlieb of Cineurope admired...

Mark Cousins’ unconventional portrait of an artist “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things” took top honors at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, snagging the fest’s iconic Crystal Globe alongside a cash prize of $25K to split by the Scottish-Irish filmmaker and his producing partners.

Featuring the voice work of Tilda Swinton, the award-winning doc follows the life and career of artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a lesser-known master of modern art whose outlook and output underwent a profound spiritual, aesthetic and ideological transformation once the painter had a moment of epiphany atop Switzerland’s Grindelwald glacier in 1949.

The climbing expedition left Barns-Graham with a new set of obsessions and forms of expression – giving her life a new meaning.

Before claiming the Jury Prize, Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s domestic drama “Loveable” also took acting honors for star Helga Guren as well as parallel awards from the Ecumenical Jury, the Europa Cinema Label,...

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...

A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, Mark Cousins‘ documentary essay about Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and her neurodiversity, including diary passages narrated by Tilda Swinton, won the Grand Prix – Crystal Globe, the top award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) on Saturday. Clive Owen was honored with a Kviff award at the closing ceremony.

A Sudden Glimpse is “exploring the pivotal 1949 experience atop Switzerland’s Grindelwald glacier that reshaped British modernist painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s artistic perspective for decades to come.” The Crystal Globe comes with a $25,000 prize. “I did not expect this in a million years,” Cousins said in accepting the honor. About Barns-Graham, he said: “She didn’t change the world. But she lived completely, fully and utterly. Let’s try to do that.”

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival‘s closing ceremony also honored the Norwegian marital drama Loveable, directed by Lilja Ingolfsdottir, with its special jury prize,...

UK director Mark Cousins’s A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things has won the top prize, the Crystal Globe, at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, while Loveable by Norwegian director Lilja Ingolfsdottir won five awards in total including the special jury prize and best actress award for Helga Guren.

Cousins‘ A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things is a documentary portrait of British painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a leading figure in the modernist St Ives group of artists. Screen’s review said that Cousins brought “his distinctively poetic and enquiring approach to this elegiac cine-essay“ to the film. Conic acquired...

Noaz Deshe, whose “Xoftex” had its world premiere this week in competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is in post-production with his next project.

Deshe tells Variety the new film is a documentary set in Ukraine, which is a collaboration with Russian dissident Pyotr Verzilov – an artist and member of the anti-Kremlin performance art group Pussy Riot – and “House of Cards” creator Beau Willimon.

Deshe – a Romanian citizen whose grandfather was Ukrainian – won’t be drawn on the documentary’s title, but says it is “about intimacy and love in a time of love and dreams.”

Deshe’s unsettling sophomore feature “Xoftex” is a deep dive into the world of the “other.” Like his acclaimed 2013 directorial debut “White Shadow,” about an albino boy, “Xoftex” takes viewers into a landscape of alienation and pain that is challenging to watch.

Inspired by a vast Greek refugee camp named Softex just north of Thessaloniki,...

“Xoftex” is a name you might expect to find on a pharmacy shelf, to be taken only after consultation with your physician. In Noaz Deshe’s heady second feature, however, the title refers to an imagined refugee camp in Greece: a vast, purgatorial compound that has as numbing and disorienting an effect on its residents as the strongest prescription medication. Following a pair of Syrian brothers as they wait out the agonizing process of asylum application — passing the time by bickering, fantasizing about a better life in northern Europe, and shooting amateur movies — Deshe’s film strikingly captures a sense of passing time and personal stasis battling each other to a fraught draw, building to a freeform surrealism that gives “Xoftex” its own identity amid the recent wave of cinema centered on the migrant crisis.

The film’s stylistic singularity won’t come as a surprise to those who saw...

It wouldn’t be a film festival without at least one timely, harrowing emigrant story, but just when you might think the stylistic possibilities have been exhausted — from documentary, to vérité-style fiction and occasionally a dash of deadpan comedy — along comes Noaz Deshe’s audacious, delirious feature Xoftex. Perhaps too out-there in its concepts and execution for mainstream crossover, Deshe’s film should pick up steam on the arthouse circuit, offering an unorthodox, often oblique, but emotionally powerful attempt to recreate onscreen the disorientation of the stateless mind.

The title, which sounds like something Big Pharma might produce, is actually an immigrant compound in Greece, where largely Muslim refugees are housed while they await the outcome of their asylum claims. This, a brusque opening credit tells us, can take up to a year, but the truth is that the process can go on much,...

Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers in a Greek refugee camp awaiting updates on their status. That is the world director Noaz Deshe (White Shadow, which was executive produced by Ryan Gosling) chose as the setting for his second feature film Xoftex, which had its world premiere at the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Monday night.

“To pass the time between interviews with the immigration office, Nasser and his friends film satirical sketches and make preparations for a zombie horror flick,” reads a plot description shared by the festival, which has also posted a film clip online. “Except that the reality of the camp could be taken for a horror scenario itself. The tension between its inhabitants gains momentum and every conflict removes one more brick from the wall which divides reality from dream – or, indeed, nightmare.”

The story is infused with experiences and inspirations of...

Noaz Deshe has had a varied film career as a composer, cinematographer and director. His feature directorial debut White Shadow, the story of a young Albino on the run, won him Lion of the Future Award at the 2013 Venice Film Festival. He has collaborated with Iranian director Babak Jalal as composer on Frontier Blues (2009) and as the cinematographer on Tiger award winning Radio Days (2016).

Deshe’s sophomore feature is German-French co-production Xoftex, which is co-written with Jalal. Xoftex is the name of a a Greek refugee camp for Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers. To pass the time, camp inhabitants such...

Noaz Deshe has had a varied film career as a composer, cinematographer and director. His feature directorial debut White Shadow, the story of a young Albino on the run, won him Lion of the Future Award at the 2013 Venice Film Festival. He has collaborated with Iranian director Babak Jalal as composer on Frontier Blues (2009) and as the cinematographer on Tiger award winning Radio Days (2016).

Deshe’s sophomore feature is German-French co-production Xoftex, which is co-written with Jalal. Xoftex is the name of a a Greek refugee camp for Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers. To pass the time, camp inhabitants such...

The programme of the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which opens on Friday (June 28), is typically wide-ranging, befitting its reputation as a platform for both fresh discoveries and world cinema highights.

The Crystal Globe competition has the world premiere of UK director Mark Cousins’ A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary portrait of UK painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Also in competiton is Beata Parkanova’s Czech-Slovak title Tiny Lights which follows a family break up as perceived by a child. Parkanova won the best director award at Karlovy Vary in 2022 for Word.

Rising Norwegian writer director Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s...

Noaz Deshe’s “Xoftex,” which has its world premiere July 1 in the Crystal Globe Competition of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, has debuted its trailer (below). Mad World is attached as the film’s sales agent.

“Xoftex” is Deshe’s second feature film. His feature debut, “White Shadow,” about the hunting of a young Albino, won the Lion of the Future Award at Venice Film Festival, and was showcased at Sundance Film Festival.

The screenplay for “Xoftex” is by Deshe and Babak Jalali, who directed and co-wrote “Fremont,” best director award winner at Karlovy Vary last year.

“Xoftex” centers on a Greek refugee camp called Xoftex, where Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers anxiously wait for news of their refugee status. To pass the time between interviews with the immigration office, Nasser and his friends film satirical sketches and make preparations for a zombie horror movie.

However, the reality of the camp...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) has unveiled its competition and other lineups for its 58th edition, set to run in the Czech spa town from June 28 to July 6. It also set its competition jury, including indie film producer Christine Vachon who will be joined by Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, Hungarian director Gábor Reisz, Icelandic poet, novelist and screenwriter Sjón and Czech actress Eliška Křenková.

Organizers highlighted 15 directorial or feature-directorial debuts in this year’s official selection and various world premieres.

In its special screenings lineup, Kviff will present the world premiere of Ukrainian filmmaker and former Kremlin prisoner Oleh Sentsov’s new documentary Real. Sentsov “is currently defending his homeland as a lieutenant in the Ukrainian army, which he joined in the first days of the Russian invasion in February 2022,” the film description provided by the fest reads. “During one assault, his infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by enemy artillery.