About The Award

The Pavel Koutecký Award is one of the prestigious awards for documentary film intended for emerging documentary filmmakers.

The award has been given since 2007 in honour of the late director Pavel Koutecký. For the last few years, it has been closely linked to the ELBE DOCK festival within which it was also awarded. It is the award for the best Czech documentary film of the previous year and is given in two competition sections - short documentary and feature-lenght documentary.

PAVEL KOUTECKÝ AWARD FOR A FEATURE-LENGHT DOCUMENTARY of a Czech director or made in a Czech production is awarded to the director of the film and is accompanied by a financial reward of CZK 50,000.

PAVEL KOUTECKÝ AWARD FOR SHORT DOCUMENTARY produced at the Czech film school or made in Czech production is awarded to the director of the film and is associated with a financial reward of 25.000 CZK.

The juries of previous editions of the Pavel Koutecký Award have included many leading figures of Czech culture. For example, journalist and screenwriter Ondřej Štindl, literary critic and historian Jiří Peňás, Czech playwright, screenwriter and director Petr Zelenka, director and cinematographer Miroslav Janek, writer Petra Hůlová, actor and director Jiří Havelka and film director Drahomíra Vihanová. In the last two years, representatives of the younger generation, such as journalist Janek Rubeš, artist Kateřina Šedá, performer Kamil Bartošek (Kazma), presenter Emma Smetana, and artistic director of the Signal Festival Richard Loskot, have also begun to appear on the jury.