‘Blue Heron’ by Sophy Romvari wins Explore Award

Sophy Romvari’s stunning debut feature Blue Heron has won the Explore Award at the 52nd edition of Film Fest Gent. The award is presented by the festival’s Explore Zone Jury, consisting of 6 young critics under the age of 26. A Special Mention was given to the campy, yet feverish sex thriller Anything That Moves by Alex Phillips.

The award was presented to Sophy Romvari ahead of the screening of Blue Heron this evening at Kinepolis Gent. The Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker was present and gratefully accepted the prize from the hands of the Explore Zone Jury.

Every edition, Film Fest Gent invites a new generation of cinephiles (18-26) to dive into the Explore Zone selection full of films that speak directly to their generation. The 2025 jury consisted of Engelart Willems, Manon Poelman, Jona Heldenbergh, Samy Elzamly, and Kato Delrue, joined by MNM reporter Imane Boudadi. Out of 15 films, including Golden Bear winner Dreams (Sex Love) by Dag Johan Haugerud, Chronology of Water by Kristen Stewart, and Têtes Brulées by Maja Ajma Ide-Zellama, they chose Romvari’s debut as their winner.

In Blue Heron, Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker Sophy Romvari delivers a kaleidoscopic and deeply personal coming-of-age tale about eight-year-old Sasha, whose family migrates from Hungary to Canada. Their fresh start is shadowed by the troubled behaviour of her older brother Jeremy. Drawing on her own life, Romvari blurs the lines between fiction and memory, creating a delicate and moving reflection on family, loss, and how the past lives in and through the present. With poetic precision and stylish cinematography by Maya Bankovic, Blue Heron evokes the bittersweet glow of 1990s childhood and the fragile ties that bind siblings across time.

According to the jury members “Romvari's feature film debut is quietly astonishing: a personal document of rare sensitivity and restraint, in which the family is respectfully observed and disorientation is allowed to linger. Memory, imagination and discovery merge into a unique experience: a patient exploration of childhood trauma that has emotional resonance. Warm and pure, but also vulnerable and honest: a catharsis of long-buried grief, shaped with inventive fiction and poetic non-fiction.”

Blue Heron will be screened twice more at Film Fest Gent in Kinepolis (Sat. 18 Oct. 23:00 & Sun. 19 Oct. 09:30). Tickets can be bought here. The film will be distributed in Belgium by Cherry Pickers Filmdistributie. As winner of the Explore Award, the film now receives a media campaign in De Morgen, Knack Focus, and MNM, worth €27,000, boosting its Belgian release.

The jury also granted a Special Mention to Anything That Moves by Alex Phillips. This gloriously unhinged dark comedy follows a sex-working bike courier who becomes a murder suspect when his clients turn up dead. Shot on vibrant Super 16mm, the film fuses camp, eroticism, and retro thrills into a feverish ode to sexual freedom.