The statute for voting on the Czech Republic’s candidate for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) award for “International Feature Film” was revised

Wednesday, 16th July, 2025

This year, the statute for voting on the Czech Republic’s candidate for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) award for “International Feature Film” was revised to align with AMPAS guidelines, recommendations, and rules. Most European countries appoint a selection committee and do not allow the entire academy to vote. We opted for a two-round voting process, in which three to four films are selected from the submitted titles by a commission of the Czech Film and Television Academy (CFTA) presidium. The final decision in the second round is then made by the entire CFTA academy. Both AMPAS and the producers of the eligible films were informed of this change in advance.

The selection of a candidate involves more factors than just the artistic quality of the film itself. It is necessary to consider the marketing and PR strategies of the projects, the filmmakers’ ability to fund a campaign, and the involvement of an international distributor with experience on the U.S. film market. Producers were therefore invited to present not only their films but also their distribution and marketing strategies directly to the commission. Based on this information, the three strongest candidates were selected in the first round this year. Of these, the film The Broken Voices (Sbormistr) received the highest number of votes and was recommended for the second round. The other selected titles were Caravan and the documentary I’m Not Who I Want to Be Yet (Ještě nejsem, kým chci být). The ranking of the films serves only as a recommendation for the second round of voting by the full CFTA academy.

At the same time, the voting period and the announcement of the Oscar candidate for the Czech Republic were moved to an earlier date to give the producer and the entire team of the selected film a better chance to prepare a relevant and competitive campaign—on par with other international films seeking an Oscar nomination.

Link to the statute: https://www.filmovaakademie.cz/en/oscar/voting-rules-about-the-candidates-of-the-czech-republic-for-the-ampas-award

The change in the rules for selecting the Czech film for the AMPAS award was approved by the presidium, the highest governing body of the CFTA. The members of the CFTA presidium commission—who declared no conflict of interest with any of the submitted films and were thus eligible to participate in the recommendation process—were: Ivo Mathé (Chair of the Commission), Petr Dvořák, Matěj Chlupáček, Jaromír Kallista, Jan P. Muchow, David Ondříček, and Petr Zelenka.