News / Published 2026-10-31

Georgia’s Guria Wins Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards

Levan Koguashvili’s Georgian co-production took the top prize at the 19th Asia Pacific Screen Awards on the Gold Coast, with Thailand’s 9 Temples to Heaven winning best director.

A flat vector illustration of an abstract awards stage: a row of blank plinths of different heights under a soft violet halo, with a single flat star shape rising between them. Geometric solids only, no statues of people, no flags, no seals, no logos and no readable text.
Conceptual editorial illustration; not a photograph of the people or event described.

THE SHORT VERSION

  • Guria, directed by Georgia’s Levan Koguashvili, won best film at the 19th Asia Pacific Screen Awards, handed out on 30 October on the Gold Coast.
  • Thailand’s Sompot Chidgasornpongse took best director for 9 Temples to Heaven, and the Jury Grand Prize went to Shahrbanoo Sadat for No Good Men.
  • The field ran to 36 films from 32 countries; five projects received $10,000 each from the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund.

Best film goes to Guria

Guria, directed by Georgia’s Levan Koguashvili, was named best film at the 19th Asia Pacific Screen Awards, which were handed out on 30 October at The Star Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, according to Variety. Deadline reports the same result from the Gold Coast on the night of the ceremony. Variety says Koguashvili shared the prize with producers Olena Yershova and Boris Frumin.

Variety describes the film as a production made across seven countries: Georgia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Türkiye, Norway and Saudi Arabia. Deadline calls it an international co-production and names the same three producers as those recognised alongside the director. Neither report describes the plot of Guria, and neither gives a release plan for it beyond the festival circuit. Deadline does not repeat the list of co-producing countries, or say which partner led the production.

Thailand takes the directing prize

The directing prize went to Sompot Chidgasornpongse of Thailand for 9 Temples to Heaven, a co-production that Variety lists as involving Thailand, Singapore, France, Norway, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Qatar. Deadline records the same award without the list of territories. Variety adds that Aung Phyoe of Myanmar received a special mention in the directing category for Fruit Gathering, and that the Jury Grand Prize went to the Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat for No Good Men.

Deadline gives the jury’s reasoning for that last prize: it commended her “compelling approach to storytelling and her contribution to contemporary Afghan cinema”. Neither outlet names the individual jurors, and neither prints a citation for the special mention given to Aung Phyoe. Variety does not explain how the grand prize differs from the best film award, and neither report says how many films the jury considered or how the vote was taken.

A field of 36 films from 32 countries

Variety puts the size of the competition at 36 nominated films from 32 countries and regions. The performance prizes went to Pushpa Thing Lama of Nepal for Elephants in the Fog and, in the new performer category, to Sim Su-bin of South Korea for The World Before. The screenplay award went to Rakan Mayasi, Wahid Ajmi and Pôl Seif for Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep, backed by Belgium, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Variety gives the backing countries for the screenplay prize but not for the acting awards.

Vietnam’s Nguyễn Vinh Phúc took the cinematography prize for Hearing. Deadline lists the same acting, screenplay and craft winners in its own summary of the night, without Variety’s detail on the territories behind each film. Neither report gives vote counts or the names of the runners-up in any category, and neither lists the films that made up the 36-title field.

Youth film, animation and documentary

New Zealand’s Paloma Schneideman won best youth film for Big Girls Don’t Cry, produced by Vicky Pope and Thomas Coppell, according to Variety. The animation prize went to The Violinist, a co-production between Singapore, Spain and Italy co-directed by Ervin Han and Raúl García. Itab Azzam and Jack MacInness won best documentary for One in a Million, a British and American film that follows the life of a Syrian refugee. Deadline records the three prizes in the same order.

Variety also records the Cultural Diversity Award, which went to Isabelle Kalandar, who directed and produced Another Birth, a collaboration between Tajikistan, the United States and Qatar. India’s R. Gowtham received the Young Cinema Award, given with NETPAC, for Members of the Problematic Family. Malaysia’s Haziqah Azemi took the Forum Filmmaker Award for a project called Garek. Neither report gives the cash value of these three awards, if they carry one.

The film fund and the academy behind it

The ceremony also announced the five projects selected for the 2026 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund, each of which receives a $10,000 grant funded by the Motion Picture Association. Variety names them as Payal Kapadia’s A Memory of Being Here, Davy Chou’s My Father’s Glory, Taifeng Liu’s A Place in the Sun, Nicole Midori Woodford’s Incarnation and Zhanana Kurmasheva’s documentary The Story of My Shirt. Neither report says how the five were chosen.

Variety notes that three of the five are directed by women, and that Anthony Chen, a producer on Incarnation, returns to the fund after We Are All Strangers received a grant in 2023 and was among this year’s nominees. The same report puts the APSA Academy, which every nominee joins along with the nomination councils and juries, at more than 1,816 members across 84 countries and areas, with Jack Thompson as president. Deadline lists the same five recipients and the same grant, without the production details.

What the chair said, and what neither report settles

Tracey Vieira, chair of the awards, is quoted by both outlets. Deadline prints the longer version, in which she says this year’s winners “remind us of the extraordinary stories emerging from our region and the importance of creating opportunities for these voices to be recognized internationally.” Variety also records the FIAPF Award for the veteran Indian producer Bobby Bedi, and quotes Luis Alberto Scalella, the federation’s president, on Bandit Queen and Fire. Neither report explains how that award was decided.

Neither report lists the full jury, the vote counts or a date for the next edition, and neither says when Guria will be released beyond the festival run. The confirmed record is the best film prize, the directing and jury awards announced with it, the 36-title field and the fund recipients both outlets tally. Related coverage on this site includes the BFI London Film Festival 2026 winners, the Tokyo festival run of Journey There, Nowhere to Lay My Eyes, Japan’s record anime market and the Rotterdam and IFFR 2027 premieres.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. Georgia’s ‘Guria’ Wins Best Film at Asia Pacific Screen Awards — Variety
  2. ‘Guria’ Wins Best Film At Asia Pacific Screen Awards — Deadline
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