The 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival concluded with a particularly resonant selection from its Ecumenical Jury, which awarded its prize to Max Walker-Silverman’s “Rebuilding,” a quiet American drama about community formation in the aftermath of personal disaster.
The choice reflects the jury’s commitment to films that explore profound human resilience—a theme that ran through both the winner and the commendation. The Ecumenical Jury, comprised of Achim Forst from Germany (president), Rose Pacatte from the USA, and Ida Tenglerová from the Czech Republic, found in “Rebuilding” what they described as “a beautiful, life-affirming story that offers hope in the face of hardship, both personal and environmental.”
Walker-Silverman’s film follows a divorced Colorado rancher who loses everything in a wildfire and finds himself relocated to an emergency relief camp alongside other displaced survivors. The jury praised the director’s “delicate touch” in exploring themes of community, generosity, and cooperation as strangers forge new bonds of family and friendship.
The Ecumenical Jury also awarded a Commendation to Gözde Kural’s “Cinema Jazireh,” recognizing the film’s “exceptional potential to make the audience care about what is happening in the world.” The Turkish-Iranian-Bulgarian-Romanian co-production, which Turkey’s Ministry of Culture rejected, tells the story of an Afghan mother who disguises herself as a man to search for her missing son after surviving her family’s massacre under Taliban rule.
The jury praised “Cinema Jazireh” as “a testament to hope, resistance to tyranny, and the power of profoundly human networks working together,” noting how Kural’s “gritty cinematography and nuanced editing” weave contemporary global issues—war, oppression of women and marginalized communities, gender identity, sex trafficking, and child abuse—into the fabric of Leila’s journey.
The dual recognition of both “Rebuilding” and “Cinema Jazireh” reveals the jury’s approach to cinema’s role in addressing human suffering. Rather than choosing between hope and harsh reality, they honored both cinema’s capacity for healing through community (“Rebuilding”) and its power to bear witness to injustice (“Cinema Jazireh”).