Olga Dabrowska, the Documentary Film category winner of Ceska Leonarda 2025

The winner of Czech Leonarda 2025: Documentary Work “Femina Femininum – Woman is Not A Taboo” was named as Olga Dabrowska with her project OHROŽENI (Endangered).

Olga submitted a project for a feature-length investigative documentary film about the systematic mistreatment of Czech children after their parents separate. It is a difficult but important social issue.
Olga wants to use film to address the sad fact that the social and legal protection system for children in the Czech Republic is so flawed that it endangers those it is supposed to protect: children. Several children, now grown up, who have been through the system, described it to her as a tyrannosaurus. For them, this prehistoric dinosaur symbolises a system that destroyed their childhood and, quite possibly, their adult lives.
Unfortunately, she also discovered a tyrannical “spirit” in the social and legal protection system for children. It arose gradually, apparently unintentionally, originally perhaps from a well-intentioned plan, but one that contained so many overlooked errors and shortcomings that they gradually grew into a state that allows and, unfortunately, now also generates widespread child suffering. The body of this tyrannosaurus consists of poorly drafted and poorly understood laws, problematic practices, and, of course, the people in this system, their various failures, and the causes that lead to them. All boys and girls whose parents, for whatever reason, are unable to cope with their own breakup are at risk. The system begins to address the situation, and it is bad. Although the protection of children and their best interests are declared on paper, today’s practice is heartless and cruel to children.