06/05/2015 - Fiction features, documentaries and television projects have been awarded by the international juries at Plzeň

The showcase of domestic production at the Czech festival Finále Plzeň (see the news) has successfully wrapped its 28^th edition with the awards ceremony. A selection of Czech and Slovakian audiovisual works made over the last 12 months competed in the categories of fiction and animated features, documentary features, and in the television production section. The international jury, chaired by Czech director, scriptwriter and producer David Ondříček – and also comprising Polish director, editor and scriptwriter Dorota Kędzierzawska, director of Molodist International Film Festival Andriy Khalpakhchi, Macedonian actress Verica Nedeska and Slovakian distributor Michal Drobný – unsurprisingly decided to grant the main prize, the Golden Kingfisher, to Petr Václav’s award-festooned oeuvre The Way Out [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Petr Václav
film profile]; they praised the film for being “highly professional, full of emotion and featuring an impressive main protagonist”. The documentary on the new generation of influential Slovakian photographers from the 1980s, wave vs shore (the directorial debut by Slovakian cinematographer Martin Štrba), took the Best Documentary nod, while another Slovakian documentarian, Miro Remo, received a Special Mention from the jury for his film Comeback, a “unique, exhaustive observation of the closed world that is the cycle of crime and punishment”.

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The television category was divided into two sub-categories, cyclical and non-cyclical productions, in which 16 audiovisual works competed for the main prize, out of the 65 titles registered in total. The Golden Kingfisher for Best Television Project in the cyclical sub-section was handed to the celebrated Slovakian series produced by Radio and Television Slovakia Secret Lives, whose fourth episode focused on the fates of women in a shelter. The jury praised the series for its “sober and unsentimental portrayal of women on the fringes of society fighting for a better status”. A film series produced by the Czech public broadcaster, Czech Century, took home the Award for Best Non-cyclical Television Project for the episode It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, directed by Robert Sedláček. A Special Mention went to the web-TV satire Blanik Office, a sitcom reflecting the current political situation in the Czech Republic and inspired by real-life scandals, thus foreshadowing the boom in internet television, the popularity of which is expected to increase further after Netflix’s arrival on the Czech and Slovakian markets next year.

Students from the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň had their own go at handing out awards, deciding to bestow the Best Film Award upon Štěpán Altrichter’s debut, Schmitke [+see also:
film review
film profile], a dramedy about identity crisis and uprootedness; they also chose the intimate portrayal of a young paedophile, Daniel’s World [+see also:
trailer
interview: Veronika Lišková
film profile] by Veronika Lišková, as Best Documentary. Three Brothers [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a fairy-tale musical and the number-one movie in the 2014 admissions charts, was named Best Film in the audience poll, and viewers also decided to recognise Hana Vagnerová’s performance in the film Hany [+see also:
trailer
interview: Michal Samir
film profile] with the Audience Award for Best Actress.