The 2025 Prague Independent Film Festival (PIFF) has wrapped up with an exceptional display of talent from filmmakers around the world. From thought-provoking short films to emotionally charged feature narratives, this year’s awards recognized works that pushed the boundaries of storytelling, experimentation, and artistry.

I Never Said Goodbye was named Best Feature Film, winning acclaim for director Yev K’banchik’s Baltimore-set meditation on loss and belonging. Interweaving magical realism with lived immigrant experience, the film left a strong impression on audiences and jurors alike. Its inventive soundscape, cinematography by K’banchik, and willingness to embrace improvisation elevated its raw emotional power. Artur Smolyaninov, best known for Russian blockbusters such as The 9th Company, received the Best Actor award for his moving performance as a man mourning his mother while negotiating fractured identities. The project also marked Smolyaninov’s first English-language film.

Reflecting on the unconventional process, Smolyaninov explained:

“I was allowed to improvise, to suggest. The film was meant to be a short, maybe 20–30 minutes. But Yev shot so much it became 70 minutes. Everything he filmed—small, ordinary details—suddenly became art.”

Shot in just 20 days without a crew, the project evolved spontaneously. “The only real challenges were the weather,” Smolyaninov recalled. “Otherwise, it was just us, with a shared understanding.” Even the ending came as a surprise to him: “It was completely different at first.”

K’banchik’s personal history is woven throughout, shaped by his mother’s death from cancer and his years living between Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. Smolyaninov reflected on both the director’s journey and the film’s American setting:

“It’s a complicated country. I like to travel there, but I still don’t know what America is.”

On his character, he added:

“This guy is kind of like me, but not an actor or a public person, not someone who is known. Just a regular guy, a talented artist.”
And with a smile:
“I’d still like to play an artist, a doctor—maybe even a woman.”

The Best Actress prize went to Kristin Griffith for her layered portrayal in The Reckoning, directed by Alex Breux. Known for her breakout role in Woody Allen’s Interiors, Griffith delivered a poignant performance as a disabled widow. Breux was also awarded the Best Director prize.

Reflecting on her experience making the film, Griffith explained:

“This was during the SAG union strike. No one could do auditions. My agent—who was also the agent of the director and one of the actors—gathered everyone to do the film. We chatted at my house and read through it. What I love is that this festival celebrates the independent filmmakers, the clearer voice of the filmmaker who doesn’t have to answer to a big studio, which is really important. And when making the film it’s like a whole company comes together, a closer community voice, which I love.”

On the significance of PIFF, she added:

“Prague is amazing. There is a celebration of art here, which is in jeopardy in many other parts of the world. So it’s really important to be here. Freedom is shutting down in many areas of the world right now. The artists always led the way to freedom, from the Greeks onward, so it’s important to do this work.”

Kristin Griffith attended the festival together with her husband, well-known actor Peter Maloney (The Thing (1982), Requiem for a Dream (2000).

Night of Resolutions, directed by Dylan Gouze and written and produced by Raja Hanna, earned the Best Short Film award for its emotionally gripping portrayal of a mother who discovers her husband’s infidelity. Set on New Year’s Eve, the film captures how betrayal fractures the family, as the children wrestle with whether to stay with their mother or side with their father, while long-suppressed tensions erupt into the present.The powerful script, drawn from Hanna’s own childhood experiences, and naturalistic performances made it an audience favorite at PIFF.

Russell De Rozario was awarded Best Short Film Director for This Damnation, a period drama set in 1977 London and Belfast. Known primarily for his work as a production designer on major Hollywood productions, De Rozario brought a remarkable level of craftsmanship to this intimate historical narrative. Reflecting on the personal nature of the project, he said:

“This was made by me and my family. We all work in the film industry, but we wanted to do something where we weren’t constantly told what to do. So we made a short abstract from something longer. The band—people I knew as a kid, like the drummer from The Sex Pistols and the guitarist from Generation X—wanted to help the project. What’s amazing is the level of care people put in. In a world that can feel quite shitty, it’s inspiring to see people who still care. For my film, it was people from everywhere, every gender, every religion—London is a true melting pot.”

Kazbegi, a short documentary by Ukrainian director Yakiv Antypenko, was honored as Best Documentary for its stunning portrayal of life in the Kazbegi region of Georgia. Antypenko, who previously worked as a photographer for the national park in the region, described his creative process:

“My film Kazbegi is about a Georgian region. I worked as a photographer for the national park there and shot videos with whatever instruments I had available. I wanted to speak about Georgia visually, without words. Though there is already a lot of content about the region, I wanted to tell its story through images alone.”

Kazbegi, a short documentary by Ukrainian director Yakiv Antypenko, was honored as Best Documentary for its stunning portrayal of life in the Kazbegi region of Georgia.

The Best Unproduced Screenplay award went to Come Monday by Graham Streeter, a moving exploration of end-of-life decisions. The script follows a woman with terminal cancer and her loved ones as they grapple with her choice to end her life under California’s End of Life Option Act.

Julia Pitch won the Best Art Direction award for The Mimefia, a surreal black and white dystopian thriller in which a mafia of mimes enforces silence as law.

PIFF 2025 confirmed the festival’s role as a champion of bold and independent voices,with subjects ranging from the deeply personal to the wildly imaginative, this year’s winners prove that independent cinema continues to thrive as a space for risk-taking, truth-telling, and artistic freedom.

Winners of PIFF 2025

• Best Feature Film – I Never Said Goodbye (Yev K’banchik)
• Best Actor – Artur Smolyaninov (I Never Said Goodbye)
• Best Actress – Kristin Griffith (The Reckoning)
• Best Director – The Reckoning (Alex Breux)
• Best Short Film – Night of Resolutions (Dylan Gouze)
• Best Short Film Director – Russell De Rozario (This Damnation)
• Best Documentary – Kazbegi (Yakiv Antypenko)
• Best Unproduced Screenplay – Come Monday (Graham Streeter)
• Best Cinematography – The Split (Lindsay Kent, Lauren Kent)
• Best Art Direction – The Mimefia (Julia Pitch)
• Best Experimental Film – Providence: Electric Gods II (Joshua Benson)
• Best Music Video – Baby (Nora Rosenthal)
• Best Animated Film – Tiny Teaching Tales (Julie Anne Burch)