The highest amount (EUR 600 000) in this call was granted to the project called Waves. The second co-operation between director Jiří Mádl and producer Monika Kristl of Dawson Films (On the Roof, 2019), focuses on a story of a young man who finds himself caught in danger after he starts working for a democratic radio station during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. As a project in development, Waves was supported with EUR 28 000 by the CFF and it also participated in our Czech Film Springboard development programme in 2020.

Director, animator and producer Aurel Klimt (Studio ZVON), who stood behind Fimfarum series, received EUR 580 000 for production of War with the Salamanders, an adaptation of world-famous Czechoslovak satirical sci-fi novel by Karel Čapek (published in 1936). Klimt’s version of the extinction of the human population caused by rapid multiplying of newts will be created in a distinctive artistic stylization, including 3D animation and CGI.

Other supported filmmakers will try to solve the existential problems of their heroes mainly in the environment of nature, this time. While in The Forest, emerging directors Tomáš Weinreb and Petr Kazda (I, Olga Hepnarova, 2016) join forces with producer Tomáš Hrubý of nutprodukce (Burning Bush, Nothing Like Before) to tell a story of a family whose life in forest is suddenly hit by a hurricane and also subsequent bad financial decisions, director Evženie Brabcová will take the spectators to the Backwoods, where the family ghosts and wild boars are present and the family relationships are both built and broken. Brabcová’s debut is an existential and surreal drama produced by Peter Badač of BFILM.cz. Both projects received the amount of EUR 320 000 for production.

Brabcová is not the only female director who received funding for her fiction feature debut in this call. Veronika Lišková (Daniel’s World, 2015) prepares Year of a Widow – a story of a woman who, after the sudden death of her husband, has to deal with adversity and struggle with existential uncertainty. Producer Kristýna Michálek Květová of Cinémotif Films was granted EUR 340 000 for the production of the film. Piaoyu Xie, a graduate of Prague’s FAMU, also received funding (EUR 240 000) to direct her first film, produced by Veronika Kührová of Analog Vision. In The Ugly Mandarine, Piaoyu Xie follows a young Chinese woman, a talented cellist living in Prague with her girlfriend, who fails the audition granting her a working visa. As a project in development, The Ugly Mandarine was presented in the Czech Film Springboard programme in 2020.

A sequel to the modern Czech fairy tale is also in the pipeline. Director and producer Petr Kubík (ProfesionálníVideo) and his co-producer Viktor Krištof of Three Brothers Production received EUR 160 000 for production of Alchemist Cursed in Time (a follow-up to Princess Cursed in Time, 2020). The main theme of the tale will be the dangerous and treacherous lust for power.