Pavla Klimešová is a Prague-based producer. In her company Helium Film, she collaborates with inspirational filmmakers to create high-quality content with international impact. Her greatest achievement is the film Caught in the Net [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], the most visited documentary in Czech cinemas, with over 570,000 admissions, premiered at CPH:DOX and distributed worldwide. She is also a member of the European Film Academy. An interview with him, now selected for the 2026 Emerging Producers programme (read her EP profile here).

Why do you produce documentaries?
Pavla Klimešová: Ever since I was a little child, I felt the urge to gather interesting information and share it with the world. So when I was deciding what to study at university, journalism was my first choice. With the naivety typical for this age, my dream was to become a war or social correspondent and change the world. During my studies, I went on an Erasmus programme to study at the University of Glamorgan in Cardiff, which has a great media programme. As part of the programme, we were supposed to take classes from different media fields, so I took documentary filmmaking. I was mesmerized and immediately realised that this was exactly what I always wanted to do. What I loved the most was that you could find an important topic and dig much deeper than with the traditional news format. I went on to study at FAMU, and the first film I produced was Caught in the Net. This documentary about online child abuse that premiered at CPH:DOX was seen by more than 560 thousand people in Czech cinemas and was also distributed worldwide.

Do you see documentary cinema as an instrument of social and political change?
I witnessed firsthand that films can change lives, powerful companies, and even laws. They have the power to capture and explain complex phenomena and give them the needed exposure. They can also create the right social pressure on politicians so that they go and actually do something about it. The film Caught in the Net that I mentioned contributed to one local social media platform, very popular with predators, being shut down. Many parents also learned about the issue and started to talk about it with their children, as well as about their other activities in the online world. I also produced a documentary The Law of Love that premiered at BFI Flare and followed a same-sex marriage bill that was not passed in the end in the Czech Republic. It opened up a broad social debate and long after we were getting messages from members of the LGBTQ+ community and their parents how it helped them understand the complexity of the situation.

How do you achieve and maintain work-life balance and foster overall well-being?
Unfortunately, I had to learn to take care of my work-life balance the hard way. I almost experienced burnout at one point and realised that it was not worth it and that I needed to take better care of myself. I started to practise yoga and learned how to say no when I don’t have the capacity for more work. I also find it very useful to talk about this within the film industry and to learn about coping practices from other people. It helps me feel that I am not experiencing this alone. Also, my family is my safe space that helps me keep the right work-life balance.

Where do you find audiences for your films?
Together with the team I usually work with, we think about the distribution and marketing strategy right from the development period. It helps us to have reasonable expectations and to adjust the film’s needs in the best possible way. I like to pitch and talk about the film during the production process, and I feel that it helps a lot when industry people and decision-makers know about the film in advance.

What projects do you have underway (including fiction films and other projects)?
My main partner in crime is film director Barbora Chalupová. So far we have made four films together. Right now we have three films in development. Electric Wonder is a family adventure film in which curiosity, persistence, and invention spark change in the narrow-minded world of the 18th century. There is also a documentary essay about overtourism called Viewpoint, and a social drama, On Tranquility of Mind, about the dominatrix Madame Cobra. The film is inspired by the story of a real dominatrix who appears in our documentary Virtual Girlfriends [+lire aussi :
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interview : Barbora Chalupová
fiche film] that premiered at Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival last year and she will play the main role as a non-actress. I also work on a VR film Shivering Feathers about performance anxiety with director Ondřej Moravec. Also I’m working on a coming-of-age film, Mazel Tov, David! where old friendships clash with identity, politics, and love with director Šimon Holý and producer Jan Syruček.

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EMERGING PRODUCERS is a leading promotional and educational project, which brings together talented European documentary film producers. The programme is organised and curated by the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival.

Deadline for applications to the EMERGING PRODUCERS 2027 edition is 31st March 2026.