Pilsen – 2 May – The closing gala of the Finále Plzeň film festival on Saturday was for the Golden Kingfisher awards. Competing were Czech and Slovak films shot in the past twelve months.
The international jury chaired by director David Ondříček decided to give the main award, the Golden Kingfisher for the best Live-Action or Animated Feature Film, to the social drama The Way Out by Petr Václav. “Highly professional, full of emotions, with an amazing main protagonist. The film deals with issues that are extremely important in these disquieting times,” praised it the jury consisting of Polish director Dorota Kedzierzawska, the director of the Ukrainian Molodist festival and member of the European Film Academy Andriy Khalpakhchi, Macedonian actress Verica Nedeska and Slovak distributor Michal Drobný. Twelve out of the 27 enrolled feature films entered the competition in this category.
The Golden Kingfisher for the Best Documentary was awarded by the international jury, chaired by Slovak documentary director Robert Kirchhoff, to the film about the community of Slovak photographers in the 1980s wave vs. shore by Martin Štrba. The 17 documentaries nominated (from the total of 86 enrolled) were assessed by a jury consisting of, among others, French film teacher Héléna Fantl and renowned Hungarian director/screenwriter Ágnes Sós. The jury appreciated “the personal as well as generational testimony about passion, art and life”. A special mention went to Comeback, the documentary about the Ilava prison, directed by Miro Remo, “for the unique, complex observation of the closed-off world as a cycle of crime and punishment.”
Sixteen films out of the 65 enrolled made it into the TV production competition this year (9 in the cyclical production category and 7 in the non-cyclical production category). The films were assessed by the jury on which sat Libuše Šmuclerová, the general director of a prominent multimedia publishing house, Greek screenwriter and actor Dimitris Emmanouilidis and American screenwriter, producer and teacher Brendan N. Ward. The Golden Kingfisher for the best TV project in the cyclical production category went to the fourth episode of the series Secret Lives by Ján Sebechlebský. “Soberly, without sentimentality, the series depicts the lives of women who live on the edge of society, fighting for a better position,” read the jury justification. The award for the best non-cyclical production went to the TV film It’s Only Rock’n’Roll from the cycle Czech Century by Robert Sedláček. The jury said it is “an intimate, realistic portrait of ordinary people deciding between freedom and oppression.” The jury also awarded a special mention to the episodes Crimea and Punishment and Uber-Sobotka of the Blaník Bureau series directed by Marek Najbrt. The jury pointed out the “fresh style of the series and original satirical content designed for the internet broadcasting platform”.
The films in competition were also judged by student juries composed of students from the University of Western Bohemia in Pilsen. They voted Štěpán Altrichter’s directorial debut Schmitke the best feature film and Daniel’s World by Veronika Lišková the best documentary. The Life and Times of Judge A.K., directed by Robert Sedláček, Bohdan Sláma and Radim Špaček, scored the best cyclic TV project. The student jury award for the best non-cyclic project went to the film My Uprising by Jonáš Karásek and Marika Beňadik Majorová.
The audience polls are an important part of the festival. The best feature live-action film voted was the fairy-tale Three Brothers by Jan Svěrák. Hana Vagnerová wonthe audiences’ award for the best actress for her role in Hany by Michal Samir.
The Award of the Czech Association of Film Clubs for the best Czech feature went to Andrea Sedláčková’s film Fair Play and The Century of Miroslav Zikmund by Petr Horký was voted the best documentary.
This year the Film Friendly Region award was launched. It is prepared jointly by the Audiovisual Producers’ Association, the Czech Film Commission bureau and the CzechTourism agency and this year it goes to the Jeseníky region.
Find more information at www.festivalfinale.cz a www.facebook.com/finaleplzen.
