Czech Film and Television Academy announces nominees for the 2024 Czech Lion Awards

Voting in all awards categories for the 32nd Czech Lion Awards took place from 1 December 2024 to 5 January 2025. The nominees were chosen by 228 film professionals from the CFTA. In this first round of voting, the academy’s members assessed 93 films, television series, and miniseries that premiered in 2024 (in terms of cinematic releases in 2024, the CFTA’s members looked at a total of 41 feature-length narrative films). At the final awards ceremony for the Czech Lions on 8 March, 29 films will vie for awards in 24 statutory categories. The awards ceremony at the Rudolfinum will be hosted by YouTuber Karel “Kovy” Kovář, who among other things shoots videos from KVIFF in which he talks to festival audiences.

At its press conference, the CFTA also announced the winners of the Czech Lion’s non-statutory awards. The Film Fans Award, presented by the CFTA in collaboration with ČSFD.cz, went to Jiří Mádl’s Waves, and the award for Best Film Poster went to Jan Kadlec and Jan Poukar for the poster for Amerikánka.

Four of the five nominees for Best Film had their world premieres at the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival: Waves (dir. Jiří Mádl), Our Lovely Pig Slaughter (dir. Adam Martinec), March to May (dir. Martin Pavol Repka), and The Gardener’s Year (dir. Jiří Havelka). The fifth nominee is Amerikánka by director Viktor Tauš. All five films were also nominated for Best Director, and Waves, Our Lovely Pig Slaughter, and The Gardener’s Year will also compete for Best Screenplay. Waves and Our Lovely Pig Slaughter dominated the main categories. Besides the aforementioned awards, they were also nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Music, Best Sound, and in several acting categories.

In terms of the number of nominations, as expected Waves earned the most (fourteen in all), followed closely by Amerikánka with thirteen and Our Lovely Pig Slaughter with ten. Jiří Havelka’s The Gardener’s Year was nominated in four categories – Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Oldřich Kaiser). March to May was nominated for Best Film and Best Director. A full list of nominees is available here.

As with the Czech Film Critics’ Awards, Klára Tasovská’s I’m Not Everything I Want to Be was a big hit with the jurors for the Czech Lions. It was nominated for Best Documentary, Best Editing, Best Music, and Best Sound, plus the non-statutory award for Best Poster. Also in the running in the documentary category is director Jan Zajíček’s Czechoslovak Architecture 58–89 (which had been nominated for Best Poster as well).

After two nominations for the Czech Film Critics’ Awards, the animated film Living Large continues its successful march with three nominations for the Czech Lions: Best Animated Film, Best Music, and Best Sound. 

Milan Ondrík will vie for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Dušan, a member of the Hlinka Guard in the Slovak-Czech war drama The Hungarian Dressmaker.

Nominated for the non-statutory Magnesia Award for Best Student Film are 3MWh by director Marie-Magdalena Kochová (shown in the Future Frames section at KVIFF 58) and Buzz of the Earth by director Greta Stocklassa (shown as part of the Pragueshorts at KVIFF section at the 2024 festival). Buzz of the Earth was also nominated for a Czech Lion in the category of Best Short Film.

For a complete overview of nominees and further information, see HERE.