Father, Broken Voices and Caravan also dominated the nominations for Best Director as well as both acting categories. Nominations went to Milan Ondrík and Dominika Morávková, who portray a married couple mourning the tragic death of their daughter in Father; to choir master Juraj Loj and his gifted student Kateřina Falbrová in Broken Voices; and to Aňa Geislerová and David Vodstrčil who portray mother and son in Caravan.

All three titles will be screened again in the days leading up to the ceremony (from Wednesday 4 February to Friday 6 February) at Edison Cinema in Prague, where nominated filmmakers will also take part in discussions with audiences.

In the Best Screenplay category, Father and Broken Voices are joined by the first Czech feature-length Viet-film, Summer School, 2001. For his directorial debut, Dužan Duong also received a nomination for the innogy Award for Discovery of the Year, alongside rising acting star Kateřina Falbrová and Katarína Gramatová, the debut director of the sensitive coming-of-age drama Promise I'll Be Fine.

The harrowing study of guilt and (self-)forgiveness, Father also earned a nomination for cinematography by Adam Suzin. In the Audiovisual Achievement category, critics further highlighted Tomáš Kotas’s cinematography in Promise I'll Be Fine and Beáta Kuraj’s set design in the stylised crime comedy Tony's Plan.

Among documentaries, The Impossibility by Tomáš Hlaváček, about the poverty business, and The Other One by Marie-Magdalena Kochová, about a girl growing up in the shadow of her sister with a disability, were nominated. The third nominee is Change My Mind, in which director Robin Kvapil sets out with three self-proclaimed deniers of Russian aggression on a journey to war-torn Ukraine.

Animation once again dominates the short film category. Critics selected the Czech-Ukrainian documentary diary I Died in Irpin by Anastasia Falileieva, the existential musical Stone of Destiny directed by Julie Černá, and the experimental collage tiny film about rape by Nebe Motýlová.

In the Out of Cinema category, which honours television, online and other works outside theatrical distribution, the crime miniseries The Well (Oneplay), based on true events, was recognised alongside documentaries — specifically the six-part series Because of Bear (Oneplay) and Czech Television’s feminist edutainment series Troublemaking Women.

The February ceremony marking the 16th edition of the Czech Film Critics Awards will be inspired not only by the upcoming Winter Olympic Games but will also adopt a sports-in-film theme. Sports personalities and their actors will be among those congratulating the winners. The ceremony, hosted by Jan Špaček, will be broadcast live by Czech Television on the ČT art channel.

The Czech Film Critics Awards are organised by the Czech Film Critics Association with the support of its main partners innogy, Czech Television, Czech Audiovisual Fund and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. Additional partners include ARCHA+, Champagneria and mowshe.

Full list of nominees >> HERE.