Guria Takes Top Picture Prize at Asia-Pacific Screen Awards

Directed by Levan Koguashvili, Guria claimed the leading honor at the 19th Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Koguashvili accepted the award alongside producers Olena Yershova and Boris Frumin. The production brought together partners from Georgia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Turkey, Norway and Saudi Arabia. The awards field included 36 nominated films from 32 countries and regions.

Sompot Chidgasornpongse was honored as director for 9 Temples to Heaven. Myanmar’s Aung Phyoe received a special mention for Fruit Gathering, while Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat took the jury’s top honor for No Good Men.

Other winners included Pushpa Thing Lama, recognized for acting in Elephants in the Fog, and South Korean performer Sim Su-bin, who received Best New Performer for The World Before. New Zealand’s Big Girls Don’t Cry won Best Youth Film, and The Violinist took the animation award. One in a Million, about a Syrian refugee’s life, won Best Documentary.

The screenplay honor was awarded to Rakan Mayasi, Wahid Ajmi and Pol Seif for The Eye Stayed Awake Overnight. Nguyễn Vinh Phúc won Best Cinematography for Hearing, and Isabelle Kalandar’s Another Birth received the Cultural Diversity Award.

The ceremony also announced five projects receiving $10,000 each from the 2026 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund. The selected projects include works from India, France and Cambodia, China, Singapore and Japan, and a documentary involving Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China and Chile. APSA chair Tracey Vieira said this year’s winners highlighted the region’s storytelling and the importance of bringing its voices to international audiences.