- the big budget war drama Tobruk by Václav Marhoul, Country Teacher by Bohdan Slama and The Karamazovs, the Dostojevski adaptation by director and screenwriter Petr Zelenka.

Tobruk and Karamazovs enter the award ceremony both with eight nominations each; Country Teacher has seven nominations. All three movies are nominated in the main categories Best Film of the year, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Best Actor nominees include Ivan Trojan for The Karamazovs, Pavel Liška for Country Teacher and Karel Roden, who played the title part in Guard no.47 by director Filip Renč.

Best Actress trophy will go to either Zuzana Bydžovská (Country Teacher), Martha Issová (Night Owls by Michaela Pavlatova) or to British actress Anna Friel, who played the title role in Juraj Jakubisko´s big budget historical co-production Bathory.

For the first time in Czech Lion history, the nomination ceremony honoured the best documentary of the year. Czech film critics gave the award to Citizen Havel, a time-collecting full-length documentary by directors Pavel Koutecký and Miroslav Janek, that followed 14 years of life and work of former Czech president Václav Havel. In documentary category, Citizen Havel beat out European Film Academy winner René by Helena Třeštíková and The Czech RAPublic, a hip-hop movie by Pavel Abraham.

Czech film critics also honoured The Best Movie of the year in their own category during the nomination ceremony. The Karamazovs won the critics award.

The 16th Czech Lion annual awards ceremony takes place on March 7 in Lucerna Palace in Prague.