Victim is a suspenseful drama, set in a small Czech town, about a woman seeking justice in a racist society, torn between family and the search for the truth. The story follows a Ukrainian single mother named Irina who is trying to make a life for herself as an immigrant in the Czech Republic. When Irina’s son is attacked, the whole city stands up in solidarity with her family and condemns their Roma neighbors, who allegedly committed the crime. But soon another truth starts to emerge…

Slovak-Czech-German Victim is produced by nutprodukcia with Jakub Viktorín acting as the main producer, with Czech nutprodukce (producer Pavla Janoušková Kubečková) by his side and German Electric Sheep (producer Naomi Levari) as co-producer. Important characters of the film are portrayed by Czech actors Igor Chmela and Viktor Zavadil, the DOP of the film is talented Czech cinematographer Adam Mach.

Czech Film Fund supported Victim for development, production and also in the incentives programme altogether with EUR 404 000. Victim’s filmmakers also benefited from the support of Slovak Audiovisual Fund, MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, German Federal Film Fund, Creative Europe MEDIA, Eurimages, South Moravian Film Fund, Ústí Region and Pilsen Region. The international sales are handled by Pluto Film.

As a project in the making, the film took part in the C EU Soon showcase of the MIA market in Rome last year and it was also awarded at the Eastern Promises market´s Works in Progress presentation, taking place in the frame of the KVIFF 2021. Victim’s director Michal Blaško entered the international field with student film Atlantis, 2003, which was selected for Cannes‘ Cinéfondation in 2017 and later on honored with the Magnesia Award for Best Student film within the Czech Lion Awards. Blaško also directed Czech TV series Suspicion, which was presented in Berlinale Series (2022).

Václav Marhoul's celebrated feature The Painted Bird followed a similar path to Victim three years ago – after the world premiere in Venice Competition, it was shown to Toronto audiences in its North American premiere and later made the Oscar shortlist. Toronto has also recently presented the successful Czech animated shorts Love, Dad (2021) and Daughter (2019) in Short Cuts, while the Contemporary World Cinema section gave floor in the past years to Olmo Omerzu’s Winter Flies (2018), Petr Václav's We Are Never Alone (2016), or Jan Hřebejk's Honeymoon (2013) and The Holy Quaternity (2012).