The film ‘Caravan’ by director Zuzana Kirchnerova, which explores the lives of people with intellectual disabilities and autism, won the Czech Lion award for the best Czech feature film at a ceremony held in Prague on Saturday. The prestigious awards are given out by the Czech Film and Television Academy (CFTA).
‘Caravan’, a road movie about freedom, the many forms of love, and the desire to start living, received a total of 11 nominations, winning two. Juliana Brutovska also won the award for best supporting actress for her role in the film.
Agnieszka Holland’s ‘Franz’ received the most nominations (15). Ondrej Provaznik’s film ‘Broken Voices’, which deals with abuse in a girls’ choir, received 13 nominations.
Screenwriter and director Kirchnerova’s feature film debut represented the Czech Republic in the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section at last year’s Cannes International Film Festival, which focuses on first-time filmmakers and art films.
One of the main characters is a boy with an intellectual disability, played by David Vodstrcil. The actor himself is a successful athlete who lives with Down syndrome, whereas in the film he plays a boy with an autism spectrum disorder.
In the story, 45-year-old Ester (Ana Geislerova) accepts an invitation from friends to visit them in Italy, after years of caring for her son David. However, in unfamiliar surroundings, David is unpredictable and causes trouble. Not wanting to be a burden to anyone, Ester takes an old caravan and sets off on her own with her son on a journey across Italy.
The most awards went to ‘Franz’, a biopic of the Prague-based Jewish German writer Franz Kafka, including awards for the best leading actor (Idan Weiss), best costumes (Michaela Horackova Horejsi), best make-up (Gabriela Polakova), and best production design (Henrich Boraros).
The award for best director went to Katarina Gramatova for her film ‘Promise, I’ll Be Fine’.
Duzan Duong, Jan Smutny, and Lukas Kokes won the Czech Lion award for the best screenplay for their film ‘Summer School, 2001’, set in the Czech-Vietnamese community. This film also won the award for the best actor in a supporting role, for Nguyen Dung.
The Czech Lion award for best documentary went to ‘Better Go Mad in the Wild’, directed by Miro Remo, which also won awards for the best editing (Mate Csuport, Simon Hajek) and best camera (Dusan Husar, Miro Remo).
CFTA awarded the best leading actress prize to 16-year-old Katerina Falbrova for her debut role in ‘Broken Voices’. The film also won the award for best sound (Juraj Mravec, Petr Cechak) and best score (Jonatan Pastircak, Ondrej Mikula).
The Czech Lion Award for best series went to the miniseries ‘The Well’, directed by Terezie Kopacova, inspired by a true story from February 1968 in the village of Vonoklasy in Central Bohemia. Individual actors from this series were also awarded, namely Johana Matouskova (best leading actress in a series) and David Svehlik (best leading actor in a series).
Kristyna Ryska won the Czech Lion for best supporting actress in a series for her role in the second season of ‘The King of Sumava’, about a cross-border smuggler between communist Czechoslovakia and the West. The award for best supporting actor in a series went to Jan Nedbal, who played a member of the communist secret police in the same series.
‘Dog and Wolf’ by Terezia Halamova won both the best short film award and the best student film award, while the best animated film award went to David Sukup, Patrik Pass, Leon Vidmar and Jean-Claude Rozec for their film ‘Of Unwanted Things and People’.
For this year’s 33rd annual awards, 32 films, television series, and miniseries that premiered in 2025 advanced to the final round of voting, across 24 categories. This year, 197 of the 435 members of CFTA participated in the voting.
