The Czech Film Critics Awards selected the historical biopic Arvéd as the Best Film of 2022 during a ceremony at Prague’s Archa Theatre. It also scooped Best Script award for Vojtěch Mašek & Jan Poláček and Best Actor for Michal Kern as the eponymous occultist and informant. The voting committee hailed first-time director Vojtěch Mašek’s film a “fascinating exploration of the seductive power of evil”.

The innogy Award for Best Newcomer went to Michal Blaško for the miniseries Suspicion (Podezření), a drama about a nurse suspected of murdering her patients, and his debut film Victim (Oběť), a tale of ethnic tensions in a small Czech town. Blaško, along with screenwriter Štěpán Hulík, also won The Offscreen Award for Suspicion. The Best Actress award went to Ukrainian Vita Smachelyuk for Victim.

Several films took home a single award. Adam Sedlák won Best Director for BANGER., a tale of a young drug dealer trying to break into the rap music business. Director Petr Januschka won the third annual Best Short Film Award for Island of Freedom (Ostrov svobody), a story of cold war defection. Best Documentary went to Lucie Králová for Kapr Code (KaprKód), a mixed media documentary about composer Jan Kapr. And Šimon Špidla won the Audiovisual Achievement Award for his editing work on the documentary Good Old Czechs, about Czechoslovaks flying with Britain’s Royal Airforce during World War II.

The awards were hosted by Tereza Dočkalová & Jiří Panzner.  

The Czech Film Critics Awards is organized by the Association of Czech Film Critics, with the generous support of its principal partners innogy, Czech Television, the Czech Film Fund, and the Czech Ministry of Culture. Additional support was provided by the Archa Theatre, Champagneria, and Mowshe.

Full results are available at www.filmovakritika.cz