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AWARDS Czech Republic

A Slovak invasion at the Czech Film Critics’ Awards

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- The Czech film critics have weighed up 2017’s crop of domestic cinema and sent a couple of awards over the border

A Slovak invasion at the Czech Film Critics’ Awards
Director Tereza Nvotová with her Best Film Award (© CTK)

The Czech Film Critics’ Awards ceremony always precedes the Czech Lions and offers a slightly different take on national cinema. Among the nominated titles this year were Ice Mother [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Bohdan Sláma, the Czech pick for the Best Foreign-language Film category at the Oscars, and a family dramedy about the older generation; the rape drama Filthy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile
]
, the fiction feature debut by Tereza Nvotová; and Václav Kadrnka’s contemplative medieval road movie Little Crusader [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Václav Kadrnka
film profile
]
, this year’s favourite. The domestic critics singled out the biopic Cervena [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Olga Sommerová, about world-renowned opera singer and actress Soňa Červená, and Alone [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Otakar Faifr, which follows a 92-year-old actress attempting to stage a play by herself, for the Best Documentary category. The celebration of 2017 Czech production was all the more surprising since the Best Film and Best Documentary Awards were both ultimately bestowed upon Slovakian filmmakers for their co-produced projects. 

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Tereza Nvotová nabbed the Best Film Award, and that was not her only appearance on the stage during the ceremony, as she was also named Discovery of the Year. Slovakian documentarian Miro Remo won Best Documentary for his controversial portrait of popular Slovakian singer Richard Müller and his struggle with a mental disorder, This Is Not Me [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Miro Remo
film profile
]
Ice Mother ended up with two accolades: Best Script, handed to writer-director Bohdan Sláma, and Best Actress for leading Slovakian thesp Zuzana Kronerová, who has already won a handful of laurels for her performance. Out of his five nominations, Václav Kadrnka took home the Best Director Award. Prolific actor Karel Roden, who was doubly nominated in the Best Actor category – for a father searching for his lost son in Little Crusader and for channelling the diplomat and politician Jan Masaryk in the drama A Prominent Patient [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, directed by Julius Ševčík – was eventually honoured for the latter.

The biopic drama 8 Heads of Madness [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Marta Nováková, about poetess Anna Alexandrovna Barkovova, who spent 22 years of her life in a gulag and in exile, won the Best Audiovisual Achievement Award, its only nomination. In the Beyond Cinema category, which aims to celebrate projects outside of the traditional distribution circuit, the transmedia project Czech Journal: The Limits of Work [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Apolena Rychlíková and Saša Uhlová, an episode from the Czech Journal documentary series exploring what it is like to work in the worst-paid jobs, emerged victorious. Eva Zaoralová, the long-serving editor-in-chief of Czech film magazine Film a Doba and artistic consultant of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, was honoured for her exceptional contribution to Czech film criticism.

Here is the complete list of winners: 

Best Film
Filthy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile
]
 – Tereza Nvotová (Czech Republic/Slovakia)

Best Documentary
This Is Not Me [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Miro Remo
film profile
]
 – Miro Remo (Slovakia/Czech Republic)

Best Director
Václav Kadrnka – Little Crusader [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Václav Kadrnka
film profile
]
(Czech Republic/Slovakia/Italy)

Best Screenplay
Bohdan Sláma – Ice Mother [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Czech Republic/Slovakia/France)

Best Actress
Zuzana Kronerová – Ice Mother

Best Actor
Karel Roden – A Prominent Patient [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Czech Republic/Slovakia)

Best Audiovisual Achievement
Anna Krtičková, Marta Nováková (art direction) – 8 Heads of Madness [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 (Czech Republic/Slovakia)

Innogy Award for Discovery of the Year
Tereza Nvotová – Filthy

Beyond Cinema
Czech Journal: The Limits of Work [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
– Apolena Rychlíková, Saša Uhlová (Czech Republic)

Special Recognition
Eva Zaoralová – exceptional contribution to Czech film criticism

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