The Czech Film Foundation runs an annual domestic screenwriting competition spotlighting the most interesting and well-written locally produced scripts. The competition has a good track record of awarding promising scripts that soon made it to realisation. The period drama Kryštof [+lee también:
crítica
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ficha de la película], the female-led psychological story Ordinary Failures (see the news), the period biopic drama Il Boemo (see the news) and the coming-of-age road movie Brutal Heat (see the news) belong to the latest coterie of finished films based on Czech Film Foundation-winning scripts. This year, the jury read 95 submitted scripts entailing a range of stories from dramas, comedies and fairy tales to crime stories. "The potential for early adaptation of winning scripts into film form is significant. This is also evidenced by the fact that the three winning scripts are supported by the Czech Film Fund, two have a contract option with a producer, and two screenwriters are already working with the future directors," said Martin Chalupský, a member of the Czech Film Foundation, regarding the 2022 winners.

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The main category:
Literary preparation of full-length feature films – unrealised script

The Forest - Petr Kazda, Tomáš Weinreb
The Czech Film Foundation awarded the latest project by the creative team behind the critically acclaimed biopic I, Olga Hepnarová [+lee también:
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making of
entrevista: Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda
ficha de la película]. The producing, writing, and directing team of Petr Kazda and Tomáš Weinreb is working on The Forest as they are finishing their sophomore feature film Nobody Likes Me (read the news). The new work marks a departure from dramas revolving around outsiders such as I, Olga Hepnarová and Nobody Likes Me. The story follows the family of sawmill owner Libor, who takes a gamble after a hurricane wreaks havoc in the forest. He sees a financial opportunity in the natural disaster as a way to secure his family. The whole situation spirals out of Libor's control into tragic outcomes. The Forest combines motifs of late capitalism, environmentalism, and current social reality. The project has been recently tapped for the Cannes industry initiative L'Atelier. The French co-producer on their two feature films, Arizona Films Productions, is behind the project as the film is produced by Czech outfit nutprodukce. The Czech Film Fund supported development and production, and principal photography is preliminary set for summer/autumn 2023.

Vlasta – Pavel Gotthard
The script Vlasta by the writer behind the Czech television series Actor (read the news), Pavel Gotthard, has been awarded in the main category. Gotthard based the script on the real life of Czech actress Vlasta Chramostová, who has been known as a dissident and yet, her name turned up in the lists of secret service collaborators in the early '90s. The story follows the protagonist through crucial moments of her life touching on her motivation, decisions, and outcomes that drove her to extremes. The story's main topics are coming to terms with guilt, confessions, and catharsis. The Czech Film Fund has already supported the film's development, and the film is being produced by Viktor Schwarcz of Cineart TV Prague. Czech director Jaroslav Brabec, who has lately been working on television projects after directing feature-length films The Melancholic Chicken or Horror Story in the 1990s, is attached to helm the film.

Dance Macabre – Viktor Polesný
Following Vlasta, Dance Macabre is also a script with a period biopic dimension, which focuses on the last days of the communist president of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald. Polesný revealed that he has been inspired to write Dance Macabre by "the current times we are living in" adding that the story is mainly about manipulation. In his last days, people around the president found themselves in a situation full of chaos and lies, without competence but with an ability to cheat. The scriptwriter based the story on testimonials by Gottwald's doctors that have been classified for a long time.

Star of Tomorrow category:

Naughty Children – David Semler
The Czech Film Foundation dedicates a special category to young writers under 35. The jury picked the script Naughty Children by writer David Semler. Semler won the National Literary Award for Young Writers in 2010 with the short story The Kingdom of Smiles and then turned to screenwriting. He has written more than 3 feature-length scripts and more than 10 scripts for short films, one of which, titled Must Be Painful, he also directed. Naughty Children is a drama with elements of ironic comedy about “a (mis)communication between parents and children, hearing and deaf, those in love and those who don't want to or cannot love“. Sign language interpreter Lucia has a new client who is imprisoned. He is hearing but he has a son who is deaf and can't communicate with him. Lucie helps them communicate and create a bond. Naughty Children is described as a story about “an unusual love triangle”. The Czech Film Fund supported the creation of the script's first draft.