Czech film Volklore takes silver student Oscar in Toronto
The student film Volklore by Czech filmmaker Viktorie Štěpánová this week received a Silver Student Academy Award in the Alternative/Experimental category of the international film festival in Toronto. The video essay explores the transformation of Czech folklore in the age of social media.
Volklore is the first Czech film to receive a Student Academy Award in the Alternative/Experimental category and the fifth Czech film to win a Student Oscar. It presents Moravian folklore as a form of “digital folklore”, showing how traditional customs are shared and reshaped on social media. Through the fictional Gen Z influencer Vivi, it retells a year of Moravian traditions through vlogs, advertising and the language of today’s online generation.
Alexandra Hroncová, head of the distribution company CINEFILA that represents the film, was ecstatic about its success.
“The ceremony was fantastic. It was very inspiring and very emotional. Especially because all the selected films and all the directors, they were already winners and they are winners. I think the most important thing for the participants was to be there, to be recognized and to be empowered and motivated to continue making new films.”
Originally, Volklore was recorded as a graduate film in the Center for Audiovisual Studies at Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU). It premiered at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and its success in Toronto promises bigger things to come.
Volklore will have its international premiere at Calgary Film Festival during next week’s “Oscar Campaign”, since the Student Academy Award also makes it eligible to be submitted for consideration at next year’s Oscars.
“This award is a very important factor. The film Volklore has thus qualified for the Academy Award consideration. It means that we are able to submit the film for the Oscar Awards in the category of the best short film.”
With its specific Moravian lingo and reference to local folk traditions, Volklore might prove to be a challenge for non-Czech speakers and therefore the film distribution company CINEFILA is planning special screenings for expats in Prague:
“What we will do in the following weeks after we come back home are test screenings among expats living in Prague. We have to understand how people who cannot speak Czech understand the film.”
Czech filmmakers have won Student Academy Awards several times before, including Viktor Horák and Pavel Sýkora for Krajan in 2024, Daria Kashcheeva for the animated film Daughter in 2019, Marie Dvořáková for Who Is Who in Mycology in 2017, and Jan Svěrák for Oil Gobblers in 1989.
