The picture Kryštof is based on Kristián Suda’s screenplay and tells a coming-of-age story of a young man who becomes a monk after the Communist takeover of 1948, and who attempts to escape Czechoslovakia through the Czech Forest on the Southern border of the country with Austria. The fund’s Council appreciated the originality of the screenplay about a historic topic and its urgency.

The Council gave the highest point evaluation to the project National Street. Jaroslav Rudiš, an awarded novelist and author, wrote the screenplay based on his book together with the film’s director, Štěpán Altrichter, for whom this film is a sophomore directorial project. Altrichter’s directorial feature film debut was a Czech-German coproduction film Schmitke. Among the awarded projects was also another film on a historical topic – Jan Palach – about the Czech national hero who set himself on fire as an act of protest against the invasion of Soviet troops of the country. The film is produced in time for the 50th anniversary of Palach’s death and it is directed by Robert Sedláček (Rules of Lying, Long Live the Family) with a screenplay by Eva Kantůrková.

Genre films have also received support from the fund. The black comedy Loaded Eels will be directed by Vladimír Michálek (Of Parents and Children, Sekal Has to Die, Forgotten Light); a sci-fi thriller Restore Point (dir. Robert Hloz) takes place in the near future when people who suffered a premature death are “restarted” and therefore suicide becomes almost impossible. Colonization of outer space is also the topic of Trash on Mars, (dir. Benjamin Tuček), which was shot in a simulated space station facility in the desert of Utah.

The creators of the online exclusive streaming series Blanik Office received the support of 5 million CZK for a feature film version of the political satire about the series’s namesake, a ruthless political lobbyist. A minimalist observation film about a murder without a cause – In the Pines – also received support and is headlined by screenwriter Zdeněk Holý and director Radim Špaček (Walking Too Fast, Places).