The Czech Leonarda Foundation Fund

The Story of the Foundation Fund

When a young woman chooses to become a screenwriter, film director or artist as her future profession, she embarks on an uncertain and difficult career path. There are only few fields that are more difficult and less friendly to women than the film and television industry. And, there are even fewer fields that require such great talent and even greater diligence. Despite the fact that Czech women filmmakers have both of these qualities, they don’t get many opportunities to show their talent.

The founder of the foundation fund, screenwriter and director Zora Cejnková, was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to develop, write and film her original television format, Holiday in the Protectorate. For this work she received the prestigious Eurovision EBU Creative Forum Award 2015 for the best television format in Europe. Based on this experience, Zora decided to support her women colleagues and came up with the concept of the first award for female filmmakers, the Czech Leonarda.

Our goals

The aim of Czech Leonarda Foundation Fund is to contribute to support talented women in the film industry. We want to encourage the production of high quality, innovative and internationally competitive films, documentaries, TV series, animated films, new TV formats, experimental films and web formats. In our view, targeted funding of particular filmmakers is essential. That’s why we decided to organize the first annual film prize for women screenwriters, directors and artists, the Czech Leonarda.

The winners of the Czech Leonarda will be awarded a creative stipend (as a foundation contribution), which will enable them to work consistently towards the completion of a quality script. We are convinced that some of the scripts awarded with the Czech Leonarda will be made into films that will belong to the golden fund of Czech or even world cinema.

By organizing the award, we are also working towards another of our goals, which is to promote talented and innovative women in film and television production. We have enough of them, but the public mostly doesn’t recognize them.

Why an award for women filmmakers?

According to research by the Association of Audiovisual Producers, the proportion of women directing feature films in the last 10 years has been only 16% in the Czech Republic.

Although the ratio of women and men studying at film schools is almost equal, only a small proportion of female graduates find a job in practice.

Therefore, the Czech audiovisual industry lacks a female authorial perspective, thus we are losing talents, audiences and opportunities and we are out of the current global trends in audiovisual art.

The Czech Leonarda is a very specific and targeted way, in the form of an award coupled with a stipend, to enable the development and creation of several high-quality scripts developing inventive themes each year.

This award will provide the conditions for women to work creatively, which in turn will be beneficial for the entire audiovisual industry and Czech culture as a whole.

Board of Directors

Andrea Ferancová

Andrea Ferancová Bartoňová is the co-founder of ESPIRA Investments investment fund and a prominent figure on the Czech investment scene. Prior to founding ESPIRA, she was co-owner of the Central European investment bank Wood & Company. Under her leadership, the company’s market share on the Czech stock market grew from 5% to a leading position of 30%. She actively promotes innovation, diversity and investing with a positive social impact. She also focuses on developing knowledge in key areas that will shape the future labour markets and bring a positive impact on society, empowering individuals to find meaningful, fulfilling and future-relevant work.

Andrea Matoušková

Andrea served as Director of the Probation and Mediation Service from 2016 to 2024. She graduated from Charles University in Prague with a degree in social work. In her profession, she focuses on the stories of people who face life experiences caused by crime. Whether it is the perspective of the perpetrator, the victim or society, she is interested in the way film projects can tell more than just the stories of these people. She believes in the positive power of sharing people’s stories, whatever they are about.

Oto Klempíř

Oto is an advertising professional, singer, songwriter, rapper, screenwriter, poet and frontman of the band J.A.R. He has directed several commercials and implemented hundreds of campaigns. He has contributed to the music for the films Snowboarders, Rafties and Rock of the Nerds. He also wrote the screenplays for Czech Made Man and The Diggers. In 2014, he was a member of the jury of the Czech-Slovak version of the world-famous TV singing competition X Factor. He is interested in modern trends of AI imaging methods. He has his own show on Radio Vltava and presents his podcast. With his band J.A.R they won the Anděl Award as the group of the year 2024.

Renata Landgráfová

Renata has been the director of the Czech Institute of Egyptology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University since 2023. From 2008, she has been a regular member of the Czech archaeological expedition to Abusir, where she is mainly engaged in the translation and interpretation of religious texts from the Sai-Persian tombs. She is a regular lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University and for the public and works as a consultant in the field of Egyptology for National Geographic Czech Republic. Recently, she is also leading an interdisciplinary project on hieroglyphic recognition and translation using neural networks.

Jan Vojtko

Jan Vojtko is a psychotherapist and a prominent web personality, dedicated mainly to couple and individual therapy. He studied andragogy, psychology with a focus on adult education. He has received training in cognitive-behavioral therapy, schema therapy and body therapy. He is mainly involved in couple and individual therapy.
He teaches couple therapy at the Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (INPAT). He is a member of the Czech Association for Psychotherapy (CAP), the Association of Marriage and Family Counsellors and the Czech Society of CBT.

Hana Stelzerová

Hana Stelzerova, a sociologist, was attracted to the NGO sector right at the beginning of her career. For a decade she was the director of the Czech Women’s Lobby, an association of currently 37 organizations. Here she addressed women’s issues, women’s rights in the Czech Republic and she also co-developed legislative measures to improve the position of women in society. She enjoyed and enjoys finding and using resources to improve the lives of different population groups. Besides that, she has another professional passion, her startup impactso.com.

Supervisory Board

Dana Kalinová

Dana graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Library and Information Science. During the communist era she worked in libraries. From 1995 to 2016 she was the manager and director of the international book fair and literary festival “Svět knihy Praha”. She cooperates with the UNESCO project “Prague – City of Literature”. She is the recipient, among others, of the Award of the Minister of Culture for her contribution to the development of Czech culture, the Annual Award of the Czech Literary Fund and the Order of Isabella the Catholic, awarded to her by King Philip VI of Spain in 2016.

Dana Chalupová

Dana is a lawyer. Her practice is dominated by family law cases, assisting minors and juveniles, and she has represented generations of client families. She also frequently represents clients in more “male-dominated” areas such as criminal law. Her interest in housing law has been with her since she was a student. She has respect for her colleagues, who have immeasurable insight, not only in the law but also in other fields (culture, history, philosophy, etc.). She is filled with joy by their nonchalance and gallantry and courtesy, shown especially towards us women.

Jana Vohralíková

Jana Vohralíková started her working career as a civil engineer, a structural engineer. After a long maternity leave, she gradually gained work experience in various sectors of society – non-profit, public administration, business and academia. She worked in senior management positions in all of them, and always long enough to understand their workings. She ended her career to date as Chief of Staff to the President of the Czech Republic. “The nonprofit sector has taught me that I must be passionate about the mission in a way that positively motivates and nurtures the people who share the journey with me, because without them, I can’t do it. The business sector has taught me that one and one is two and it will never be five. Academia taught me patience, that sometimes it’s good to wait for a great result. In public administration, I then tried to capitalize on the experience I gained with more or less success and build an effective office that does not say what is wrong, but looks for innovative solutions.”

Founder of the Foundation Fund

Zora Cejnková

Zora is a screenwriter, director and writer. She is a dynamic authorial personality with an interest in current issues, who does not deny her original profession as a publicist and inquisitive journalist. She has created a number of award-winning documentaries such as Cuba Incognito, Dear Leonid Ilyich, The Hunt for St. Maurus. She is the author of the original world-wide known TV format Holiday in the Protectorate and Holiday in the Era of Steam. A significant place in her filmography is taken by films about crime, perpetrators and persecutors. She is also a member of the jury of the Trilobit Film Award and a lecturer at FAMU. Her original format Holiday in the Protectorate (2015) received worldwide attention and a prestigious award at the Creative Forum Berlin, organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Zora is the founder of the Czech Leonarda Foundation Fund, the author of the Czech Leonarda Award, and the applicant and owner of the Czech Leonarda trademark and logo.