30/09/2025 - The industry initiative presenting Czech works in progress has showcased projects ranging from socially driven heist dramas to darker political satire

(© Jan Kantor)

The 2025 line-up of the Czech Film Springboard at Finále Plzeň (26 September-1 October) has been highlighting a new wave of emerging voices in Czech cinema, who presented projects that merge personal storytelling with sharp social insight. This year’s selection straddled socially charged heist dramas, intimate mother-daughter conflicts, road movies about mortality, adolescent coming-of-age tales and biting political satire. We delve deeper into the projects below:

The pitch for No Salvation Coming by Vojtěch Strakatý (© Tomas Holub)

No Salvation Coming – Vojtěch Strakatý (Czech Republic)
Czech director Vojtěch Strakatý, whose After Party [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vojtěch Strakatý
film profile] premiered at Venice and The Other Side of Summer [+see also:
film review
interview: Vojtěch Strakatý
film profile] bowed at Karlovy Vary, is developing his third feature, No Salvation Coming, a socially driven heist drama produced by Ondřej Lukeš and Jan Čadek, of Beginner’s Mind. The project fuses genre movie with generational critique, following a group of underemployed millennials and Gen Z members, an adjunct academic, a part-time paralegal, a dancer living in her car and a student sleeping at the airport, who turn to robbing the villa one of them cleans after realising that legitimate work cannot pay off their debts. Grounded in economic despair and blurred moral boundaries, the film continues Strakatý’s focus on marginalised characters forced into calculated acts of desperation. Currently backed by the Czech Audiovisual Fund, the production is seeking Western European co-producers, with development running until autumn 2026, a shoot planned for spring 2027 and a premiere eyed for 2028.

Happy End – Ondřej Erban (Czech Republic/Slovakia)
Czech screenwriter-turned-director Ondřej Erban, who was behind the short film One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Thousand (Cannes Cinéfondation, BAFTA shortlist), is preparing his feature debut, Happy End, co-written with Barbora Námerová (Filthy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile], Nightsiren [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile]). Produced by Tomáš Hrubý and Hana Šormová, of nutprodukce, the film follows fiercely driven single mother Ivana, who adopts the secret persona Vivien in the world of erotic massage in order to fund her daughter Martina’s US sports ambitions. What begins as a pragmatic sacrifice evolves into Ivana’s sensual awakening and newfound agency, until Martina’s discovery of her mother’s double life destabilises their bond. Told from both women’s perspectives, Happy End interlaces the physicality of Martina’s athletic discipline with Ivana’s erotic liberation, offering an intimate, kinetic portrait of desire, care and the body as currency. Currently in development with Slovak co-production ties, the project is seeking international partners in sales, financing and post-production.

The pitch for To Move Mountains by Anna Wowra and Vojtěch Novotný (© Tomas Holub)

To Move Mountains – Anna Wowra, Vojtěch Novotný (Czech Republic)
Hana Šormová and Tomáš Hrubý, of nutprodukce, are also producing the joint feature debut by Anna Wowra and Vojtěch Novotný, the road movie To Move Mountains. The film follows 29-year-old botanist Mája, who, while battling leukaemia, convinces her husband Tomáš to take a spontaneous trip across Europe, part-postponed honeymoon, part-unspoken farewell. As Tomáš interprets the journey as a sign of recovery, Mája secretly weighs up the risks of a potential bone-marrow transplant, their perspectives diverging as they travel from Italy to the English coast. Drawing on Wowra’s personal experience of illness, the film avoids conventional cancer narratives, instead exploring love, mortality and the right to choose. The producers are seeking Polish co-production partners, sales representation and post-production support.

Eli and Them - Petr Pylypčuk (Czech Republic)
After his Cannes-premiered short Eighth Day (La Cinef, 2023), emerging Czech filmmaker Petr Pylypčuk is developing his feature debut, Eli and Them, produced by Perfilm. The movie follows 17-year-old Eli, who is sent to her sister’s countryside farm to study, but who instead turns to her camcorder to escape boredom. Her filming draws her into a local conflict after a Roma house burns down, pulling her between Adam, a reserved farmhand grappling with his heritage, and Mariana, a sharp-witted Roma teenager convinced the fire was no accident. Blending Eli’s own camcorder footage into the narrative, Pylypčuk explores adolescence as a volatile prism through which themes of alienation, ethnic tension and belonging are refracted. Supported by the Czech Audiovisual Fund, the project is in development, and is seeking international co-production and post-production partners, with shooting planned for 2026.

The pitch for Dead Mountain by Cristina Groșan (© Tomas Holub)

Dead Mountain – Cristina Groșan (Czech Republic)
Prague-based Hungarian-Romanian filmmaker Cristina Groșan, whose Ordinary Failures [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cristina Grosan
film profile] won awards at Venice and who recently co-directed the Canal+ series Daughter of the Nation [+see also:
series review
trailer
series profile], is developing her next feature, Dead Mountain, co-written with French screenwriter Loïc Barrère. Set in a fog-shrouded Czech mountain village, the dark social satire follows shy teenager Lukáš, whose attempt to impress Erin, the daughter of a NATO soldier, with a toy drone accidentally triggers a military investigation. As paranoia and misunderstandings spiral, Lukáš is unwillingly cast as the symbol of a resistance movement that never existed. Drawing on Groșan’s international perspective, the film reflects on how suspicion, spectacle and misinformation distort reality, against a backdrop of geopolitical tension and adolescent longing. Produced by Marek Novák, of Xova Film, with support from the Czech Audiovisual Fund, Creative Europe – MEDIA and ACE Producers, the project is seeking European co-production partners ahead of a planned 2025 shoot.