July At a Press Conference on 5 July 2024 in the Zander Hall of the Imperial Spa in Karlovy Vary, the 1st Annual Czech Leonarda Film Award is launched for female filmmakers who create scripts for feature and documentary films, animated films, new TV formats and experimental films for cinema, television or the web.

Czech Leonarda Award is dedicated to women screenwriters, directors and artists who develop scripts for audiovisual works. The authors can apply for the prize by submitting a Treatment of their work (up to 10 A4 pages), intended for cinema and television in all formats and for the web.

Czech Leonarda Award wants to motivate and support women filmmakers in their efforts to create quality audiovisual works that will be interesting for Czech and international producers. Last but not least, it plans to make the work of women filmmakers more visible and thus promote Czech audiovisual works even more.

The prize is awarded in three basic Categories.

1) Fiction, including animated works, with the aim of supporting the 1st version of the script of a feature or animated film/series; the minimum running time for a feature/animated film is 60 minutes / for a series there is no limit per episode

2) Documentary Film production focusing on documentary films/documentary series with a running time of 40 min+/series without limit

3) Experimental works, new TV formats and web formats; with the aim to support the 1st version of the realization script, footage and form without limit

The prize winners will receive a financial stipend that will enable them to work in a focused and consistent manner to develop their work into a 1st version of a Literary Screenplay (fiction and animation), a complete Realization Screenplay (documentary) and a Literary-Realization Screenplay (experimental, new TV formats and web formats).

Proposal for the minimal stipend for the 1st year of the Czech Leonarda:

1. category feature film: 200 000 CZK (approx. 8 000 EUR)

2. category documentary: 100 000 CZK (approx. 4 000 EUR)

3. category experiment: 100 000 CZK (approx. 4 000 EUR)

The laureates of the Award will be selected by the Ceska Leonarda Jury, whose members include Milan Šteindler, actor, screenwriter and director, Daria Kashcheeva, Student Oscar-winning director, Irena Pavlásková, screenwriter and film director, Martin Vandas, film producer, Tereza Herzová-Pokorná, actress, Steve Lichtag, internationally renowned wildlife director and producer, Nela Boudová, film and television actress, Jana Stryková, actress, Sona Ticháčková, casting director, Krasimira Velitchková, internationally acclaimed editor and others.

The Award's final categories for the 1st edition, the Status of the Award, the submission deadlines and the date when the Czech Leonarda Award will take place will be published on the Award's website www.ceskaleonarda.cz on 31 October 2024.

The first Czech Leonarda Award will take place and the first prize laureates will receive a stipend in one year's time, in late summer 2025.