The start of 2016 was very favourable for Czech cinema. The talented young director Ondřej Hudeček received the Special Jury Award for Best Direction at Sundance Film Festival for his original short film Peacock and later appeared among the finalists of Student Academy Awards. Three Czech features were selected for Berlinale: I, Olga Hepnarova, the long-awaited debut by Petr Kazda and Tomáš Weinreb based on true events, opened the Panorama section, followed by the invitations to more than 40 festivals around the world, including competition sections at Sofia, Guadalajara, Hong Kong or Vilnius, where it won the Best Film award.

Furthermore, Kazda and Weinreb were awarded for Best Direction in Sofia and Minsk IFF Listapad and the film became a part of EFA Selection. Petr Vaclav’s latest drama We Are Never Alone, premiered at Forum and won Tagesspiegel Readers’ Jury Award, which resulted in several festival invitations including Contemporary World Cinema section at Toronto IFF or competition sections at Arras and Cairo. Petr Oukropec’s second feature, the family film In Your Dreams!, picturing the Prague parkour community, world-premiered at Generation 14Plus and resonated throughout the year at more than 30 festivals both at home and abroad, including festivals in Sofia, Sarajevo, Reykjavík, Cottbus or Cinekid in Amsterdam. In April, Crossing Europe festival in Austrian Linz dedicated the Tribute section to the world-famous Czech documentary director Helena Třeštíková and screened 14 of her documentaries including the most recent portraits, Mallory – which was also part of the EFA Selection - and Doomed Beauty.

Quite a diverse Czech line-up at Cannes 2016 was very significant for the future of the individual selected films. Short animated Happy End by Jan Saska was screened in Directors’ Fortnight - to later amuse the audiences at Annecy or Clermont-Ferrand. In November, the film was shortlisted for Short Animated Film category of American Academy Awards. The presentation of Jindřich Polák’s iconic sci-fi Ikarie XB1’s restored version within Cannes Classics started off its glorious journey around the globe, which continues up until today and has covered many festivals, including Berlinale Retrospective section this year. Three Czech minority coproductions made it to Cannes last year – the spooky feature Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas was a part of Competition, biographical The Dancer by Stéphanie di Giusto was in Un Certain Regard and the short animation Superbia by Luca Tóth in Critics’ Week.

Karlovy Vary at the beginning of July hosted three major Czech premieres. Jan Hřebejk’s powerful story of manipulation and fear The Teacher, which was consequently picked up by more than 20 festivals, including major events such as Pusan, Tokyo, Chicago, Dubai or Trieste, will be theatrically released in even more countries. The final film of Jan Němec The Wolf from Royal Vineyard Street, which had its Czech premiere in Karlovy Vary, waited with its first international presentation for prestigious Rotterdam International Film Festival, which dedicated a special retrospective to the director this year. Karlovy Vary and Toronto IFF saw also the premiere of the HBO Europe drama series Wasteland written by Štěpán Hulík and co-directed by Ivan Zachariáš and Alice Nellis, which depicts the disintegration of the relationships of one family and one village on the geographic and social periphery of the country.

The autumn belonged to the Czech documentaries – H*ART ON by Andrea Culková, Normal Autistic Film by Miroslav Janek and the minority coproduction A Hole in the Head by Robert Kirchhof made it to the official selection of DOK Leipzig. At Jihlava IDFF, 14 Czech documentaries competed, including the winning Normal Autistic Film and FC Roma by Tomáš Bojar and Rozálie Kohoutová, Dagmar Smržová’s Love Me If You Can opening the question of sexual assistance for disabled people in the Czech Republic, or the spiritual road movies Blind Gulliver by Martin Ryšavý and My Name is Hungry Buffalo by Pavel Jurda.