Published: March 06, 2023| 11:22 AM

The Pragueshorts Short Film Festival, organized by the Karlovy Vary IFF team, has announced its winners. In the National Competition, the award for the best film went to Vinland by director Martin Kuba. The jury awarded a special mention to Tomáš Starý, who played the lead role in Damián Vondrášek's Rites. The award for the best film of the International Competition went to the Lebanese film The Trees. Special mentions went to the Belgian film The Oysters and the Palestinian-Lebanese film Trumpets in the Sky. In the Experimental section of LABO, the jury was most impressed by Hlynur Pálmason's Nest, while the Audience Award went to Fairplay.

The online part of the festival continues on KVIFF.TV until Saturday 18 March. Viewers will be able to see over 60 films from the festival programme, including most of the award-winning films.

The winners of the National Competition were decided by a jury including director Cristina Grosan, editor Jaroslaw Kaminski and consultant and creative advisor Wim Vanacker. The winning film Vinland, directed by Martin Kuba, tells the story of a teacher from Eastern Europe who starts working in the Czech Republic among Ukrainian workers controlled by a Russian boss. He soon becomes a cog in the mechanism of abuse of illegal immigrant labour. The jury praised the film for its “believable characters and multi-layered approach to telling a complex story".

A special award went to Tomáš Starý for his portrayal of Michal in Rites by Damián Vondrášek. The film tells the story of two boys who decide to undergo an initiation ritual into a local street gang. In their statement, the jury called Tomáš Starý "powerful, intuitive talent, consistent in his acting style, credible from the beginning to the end.".

Eight films were screened in the National Competition this year, with a prize of 2,000 Euros for the best film.

The members of the jury of the International Competition were cinematographer Dušan Husár, actress Tereza Hofová and musician and composer David Boulter. The prize for the best film and the associated prize of 3,000 Euro was awarded to The Trees, a Lebanese black comedy about tradition, grief and the environment. "The themes of the balance between nature and family, the death of the father and the death of the trees and the rebirth and restoration of balance were very strong and simply told in a beautiful way," said the jury.

Special mentions went to the Belgian film The Oysters, about a bachelorette party in which painful truths come to the surface in a group of women, and the Palestinian-Lebanese film Trumpets in the Sky, which tells the story of a young Syrian woman whose childhood comes to an abrupt end completely without dialogue.

In the International Competition of the 17. Pragueshorts, twenty-seven films from five continents were screened.

The winner of the LABO section, dedicated to presenting fresh and innovative approaches to both form and content, was Hlynur Pálmason's Nest. The director behind the successful feature films White White Day and Godland shot the film with his children in the garden of his house during the covid pandemic. The film was awarded by a jury including poet and publicist Jonáš Zbořil, illustrator Tereza Šiklová and musician and composer Filip Míšek. "In a small space and in a short time, Nest is able to tell a story of childhood, parenthood and deep time," said the judges.

Fairplay won the hearts of the audience of the 17th Pragueshorts in cinemas. The film tells the story of what connects a teenage boy yearning for recognition, an employee trying to break through and a manager at the end of his career who wants to prove to himself that he is still alive.

Pragueshorts at KVIFF.TV
On Sunday, March 5, the online part of the festival kicked off at KVIFF.TV. It is possible to watch almost sixty films from the festival programme as part of a subscription or for the price of 160 CZK. You can see the films awarded in the National Competition (including the winning film Vinland) and the International Competition (including the winning film The Trees), as well as most of the films from the LABO Competition section (including the winning film Nest) and Fairplay, which won the Audience Award.