A Year In Czech Cinema

On Awards Patterns And Fair Play

According to the Czech Film and Television Academy, bestowers of the Lions, a pattern of the ideal Czech film, has slowly yet quite visibly emerged over the Lions' last few editions.

This awards favorite formula started with the miniseries-cum-feature film The Burning Bush directed by Polish veteran Agniezska, and In the Shadow the year before. Both featured stories set in the former Communist reign, depicting moral heroes resisting to compromise their own integrity. Holland's film touched upon the martyrdom of student Jan Palach, protesting against the authorities by self-immolation and followed attorney Dagmar Burešová on her quest to purge Palach´s post-mortal reputation, as his act and himself was growing into a bigger statement and symbol. In the Shadow was set in 1950s Czechoslovakia, and was about a captain investigating a crime linked to the secret police.

The Czech Academy revealed its overall opinion on what was the best domestic film of 2014, after selecting sports drama Fair Play, directed by Andrea Sedláčková as the country´s Foreign Language Oscar submission. To no surprise, the story is of a young promising athlete on her way to a bright career occurs in commie Czechoslovakia just before the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. The parallel plot deals with the protagonist´s mother trying to get her daughter out of the Commie-stricken country.

Things get a bit more tangled when the Communist party sets to use sport as yet another tool of political propaganda supported by steroid-enhanced athletes. The young athlete finds herself in the moral dilemma of whether to succumb to the party´s and trainer´s pressure or try to make it clean, despite being intimidated with the party´s promise to ruin her life.

Fair Play dominated the nominations, with one in every single category excluding Best Documentary, though the film´s director nabbed one there too, with a portrait on Czech´s beloved president, dissident and writer, Life According to Václav Havel. Fair Play is a piece of well-crafted mainstream-oriented morality by an experienced and talented filmmaker which easily fits into this seemingly winning formula.

However, the Czech cinema has been quite busy producing a strong number of features every year, so it would be a shame to adamantly mount the spotlight on just one single film. And in Fair Play's case the film left awards night empty-handed except for two non-statutory prizes for Best Film Poster and Film Fans´ Award.

The Way Out

Czech Film Critics' Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress

Czech Lion awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound.

Petr Václav, the Czech filmmaker living and working in France, returned to the theme of racial discrimination that he had already treated in his feature debut Marian (1996). The prejudice based on race persists as a hot topic in the Czech Republic, and attracted even more attention as the government rests idle. The Slovak film My Dog Killer addressed the affair partly. Václav focuses on one decent Roma family struggling to make ends meet. Václav plunges amidst the Roma community in docudrama fashion.

A somewhat Cinderella story emerged from The Way Out's success as the director cast non-actors, and specifically Klaudia Dudová, the main protagonist, a 26-year-old shop clerk, who went from behind the counter to before the camera and then to stroll La Croisette for the film´s premiere at Cannes. To sprinkle more fairy-tale dust in the fate of this young Roma mother, Dudová won Best Actress awards at both Czech Film Critics´ Awards and Lions, a first for a Roma woman. These, in addition to the Blue Angel award for Best Female Performance at Slovakia's Art Film Fest. She will already stars in Václav's next feature alongside popular professional Czech actor Karel Roden.

The Way Out is an unbiased and humane look at common problems within the Roma community, such as youth pregnancy, lack of education, even abuse by Roma moneylenders or pimps. Despite its anchoring in an ostracized ethnic minority and strong social and moral commentary, Petr Václav touches somewhat universal human themes of the daily struggle against all odds to find a modest place in life and in the world.

The director displayed great personal investment and belief in the cause also in his speech shortly after winning the Best Director award at the Czech Film Critics´ awards, convincing enough and honest to dispel the shadows of mistrust around the possible exploitation of the community during production.

Nowhere in Moravia

Czech Lion awards: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor

A bleak dramedy and directorial debut by actor and theatre director Miroslav Krobot, Nowhere in Moravia, revolves around existential themes and questions relating to less the metaphysical and more of a sense of what to do with life.

Maruna (amusingly laidback Tatiana Vilhelmová) works in a local pub, serving the same drinks to the same barflies following religiously the same daily routine (she also plays organ in the church). She lives with her somewhat oppressive mother and a sister Jaruna (Krobot´s daughter Lenka) who works as a nurse. One day, an opportunity arises for Jaruna to start a decent life in nearby Germany when an elderly gentleman, Hans, comes to the village to bury his recently deceased sister.

The sugar-daddy element (she is in her late thirties, he past sixty) sort of eases into an underdeveloped black comedy, which stands as a marker that a better life can indeed be achieved...at what cost remains open for a discussion.

Read full review here

Krásno

Czech Film Critics Awards: Best Actor Czech Lion awards: Best Music

Allegedly based on true events experienced by Martin Finger, co-author of the screenplay and one of the two central protagonists, Krásno is an odd mixture of buddy comedy, noir and crime caper packaged in a dark comedy.

Two big city boys, Michal (Martin Finger) and Adam (Ondřej Sokol co-writer and debuting director of the film) are returning to their rural hometown after 20 years. On the day of their arrival, Michal´s ill father dies. Father and son detached after Michal´s mother died under suspicious circumstances in the town´s nearby lake Krásno and Michal did not stop blaming his father. Dubious behaviour of Michal´s step-mother leads both friends to reinvestigate what has really happened to his mother.

Krásno's hybrid narrative shape mostly twists the detective genre on its head as the plot is fuelled by the protagonists´ assumptions and obsessions. The homecoming affair turns suddenly into a hunt on the long cold case. An unusual endeavour Krásno's black comedy setup bears several resemblances to the Coen Brothers or Martin McDonagh, but suffers from an inconsistent screenplay and too much improvisation (Sokol acts in an improv sketch show). Hopefully, Krásno has pioneered a new trend in domestic cinema and more bleak comedies start rolling out soon.

Watch the trailer

To See the Sea

Czech Film Critics´ Awards: RWE Award for the Discovery of the Year