Already this Saturday, February 21, the statuettes of the major Czech film award, the Czech Lion, will be presented to their new holders. These will include the fresh winner of the Best Documentary Film category. The nominees include five renowned and popular films Into the Clouds We Gaze, The Magic Voice of a Rebel, Olga, The Century of Miroslav Zikmund and Václav Havel – Living in Freedom. You have a unique chance to watch all of the nominated films for free or for a small fee from Monday, February 16 to Sunday, February 22! You can also join our vote and choose your own winner of the prestigious award!
For the seventh consecutive time, the documentary portal DAFilms.com brings the possibility to watch five documentaries nominated for the Czech Lion online in the week of the award ceremony. “It is a traditional event of the DAFilms.com portal supporting and promoting Czech documentary among local as well as international audiences. We are happy that this year, Czech viewers have a chance to watch all five nominated documentaries online and vote for their favourite film. I believe that the attractive selection will be well received both by critics and viewers,” says Diana Tabakov of the DAFilms.com portal about the film event.
Thanks to winning the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival in October, the film INTO THE CLOUDS WE GAZE by director Martin Dušek is a hot favourite. The documentary which has represented Czech filmmaking at the prestigious IDFA in Amsterdam portrays the reality of life in North Bohemia, heavily affected by a high degree of unemployment. Telling the story of the protagonist, whose life fulfilment consists in automobile tuning sessions, the director captures the bitter struggle for happiness and for one’s own place in the society.
The first lady of Czech documentary Olga Sommerová enters the film contest with her film THE MAGIC VOICE OF A REBEL. The documentary portrait offers an intimate look into the private, professional and political life of singer Marta Kubišová. Featuring many famous faces of the local cultural and political scene, including Václav Neckář, Václav Havel and music journalist Jiří Černý, the documentary presents the complicated life situation of the singer who ended up on the fringe of society because of her active resistance against the communist regime, only to reappear in front of the cheering crowds in the key moments of November 1989 as a symbol of indomitable faith and a firm political conviction.
Strong and striking figures of Czech cultural and political history are introduced in the three remaining nominated films as well. THE CENTURY OF MIROSLAV ZIKMUND directed by Petr Horký is the first profound witness account of the life of the key figure of Czech international expeditions Miroslav Zikmund. What is the life experience of a man who was the first Czech to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, who met leading world politicians, witnessed the breakup of colonial Africa and experienced the modern history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic from the Habsburg Monarchy to the first independent Czech state in his hundred year life?
The last two nominated films are very close to each other due to their two protagonists. Whereas OLGA by director Miroslav Janek portrays the personality of the wife of the first Czech president Václav Havel Olga Havlová, the latter film VÁCLAV HAVEL – LIVING IN FREEDOM is dedicated to the person of the president himself. Olga Havlová, who always rather stood in the background, is depicted as one of the crucial figures of the political dissent of the 1970s and 1980s; due to her friendly and frank nature, she became the sought-after friend of many personalities involved in the Czechoslovak underground movement. The documentary VÁCLAV HAVEL – LIVING IN FREEDOM, a biographical portrait of the multifaceted personality of Václav Havel as a man, artist, bohemian, underground member and an official politician, spices up the five nominated films by the fact that the feature film by the documentary’s director Andrea Sedláčková Fair Play has been nominated for the Czech Lion in ten categories.
Television viewers will find out which of the five nominated documentaries will receive the statuette of the Czech Lion on Saturday, February 21. However, online viewers will be able to choose their winner for the first time as well. Along with presenting the nominated films, the DAFilms.com portal also offers the unique possibility to choose the viewers’ winner in the best documentary film category! By means of a simple vote, viewers can vote for their favourite film and compare their film taste with that of the majority Czech audience as well as with that of professional academics. The vote will be available along with the nominated films at the portal website until Sunday, February 22.
Tame the Czech documentary Lion online in the week from February 16 to 22 at DAFilms.com!
The following movies are available for free from February 16 to 22: The Magic Voice of a Rebel, Olga and Václav Havel - A Life in Freedom. You can watch Století Miroslava Zikmunda (in the Czech Republic and Slovakia only) and Into the Clouds We Gaze for a small fee.
DAFilms.com is powered by Doc Alliance, a creative partnership of 7 key European documentary film festivals. Our aim is to advance the documentary genre, support its diversity and promote quality creative documentary films.
