Golden Prague Festival Prizes

56th Golden Prague Festival is over and we know the winners!

“The Dying Swan”, the intimate portrait of a ballerina dominates the Golden Prague Awards. It was produced in collaboration with London’s leading dance theatre Sadler’s Wells and has been aired by the BBC.

Submitted films from 51 producers and television companies internationally competed in three more categories: The Czech Crystal Award – “Recordings of Concert Performance” went to Austrian ORF for the recording of a summer night concert in Schönbrunn in which the Vienna Philharmonic performed with Anna Netrebko. The category of “Documentary Programmes” was won by “The Unanswered Ives”, a first film about the modern age composer from the US. And The Czech Crystal Award for “Recordings of Stage Work” goes to Swedish SVT for “Play At Garnier”, which according to the jury’s statement captures both the creativity of choreographer Alexander Ekman and the joy of the dancers on stage.

The Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation VIZE 97 Award was received by Roman Vávra for the coproduction documentary about conductor Jiří Bělohlávek: “But I Just Love Conducting So Much…”.

The raw Norwegian documentary “The Men’s Room” on the frailty of life illustrated by the story of a men’s choir of twenty-five rough men, often with the appearance of aging rock singers, won the Czech Television Award. German director Joachim A. Lang received special recognition for an outstanding artistic achievement for his bold film interpretation of Brecht’s “The Beggar‘s Opera”.

At this year’s Golden Prague Film Festival, it took the 5-member jury over 102 hours to watch all 87 submitted films.