PRAGUE: The Czech Film Fund expects the volume of filming in the country in 2021 to reach the level of the pre-pandemic year 2019, which was a record-setting season for the Czech cinema. This result could be reached through keeping up the interest of foreign productions in shooting in the country.

PRAGUE: The 55th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has been postponed for seven weeks to 20-28 August 2021, aiming at taking place in a form closer to the editions before the COVID-19 pandemic.

PRAGUE: The Czech/Slovak coproduction Grand Prix by popular writer/director Jan Prušinovský, which is set to start filming at the beginning of May 2021, has launched a unique crowdfunding campaign on Donio.

PRAGUE: The filming of the Czech/Slovak coproduction Czech Devil / Arvéd concluded in Prague on 14 March 2021. The debut feature by Czech artist Vojtěch Mašek is based on true events and follows "a modern Faust" Dr. Jiří Arvéd Smichovsky, who signed his soul to the Nazi regime. The Czech Film Fund and the Slovak Audiovisual Fund are supporting.

PRAGUE: The Ukrainian project Lagoons. A Battle for Paradise by Serhiy Lysenko won the main East Doc Platform Award of 2021. Four other projects won cash and other awards at the 17 March 2021 closing.

PRAGUE: Netflix’s The Gray Man starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Regé-Jean Page is set to film in Prague in the summer of 2021. Stillking will handle production services for the film, which has a budget of 200 m USD and is Netflix’s most expensive production.

PRAGUE: East Doc Platform, running online 6 – 17 March 2021, presented five Czech produced and coproduced documentaries in different stages of completion during the annual event Czech Docs … Coming Soon. All productions are ready for international distribution and sales.

PRAGUE: The Czech Film Fund gave a total of 2.5 m EUR / 64 m CZK to eight fiction feature films and 170,000 EUR / 4.5 m CZK for the development of 11 documentary productions.

PRAGUE: Charlatan / Šarlatán by Agnieszka Holland was honoured with the statue for the best film, director and three others at the Czech Lion Awards. Six other categories, including screenplay and lead actress, were dominated by Shadow Country / Krajina ve stínu by Bohdan Sláma. Both films are historical dramas about ordinary people facing harsh circumstances.

PRAGUE: The Affair / Skleněný pokoj, the Czech/Slovak adaptation of Simon Mawer's book The Glass Room, will be released on VOD in the United States on 5 March 2021 by Vertical Entertainment.