The 39th edition of Finále Plzeň, a film festival celebrating emerging filmmakers, recently concluded with its Golden Kingfisher awards ceremony. The event showcased more than 100 film titles across 151 screenings, including around 20 premieres and previews. With 40 screenings selling out and an additional 12 added to meet demand, the festival attracted a record attendance of 17,827 people. Martina Buchelová's debut feature film Lover, Not a Fighter won the Golden Kingfisher award for Best Fiction or Animated Feature. The international jury praised the film for its freshness, confidence, and its refusal to reduce young characters to generational stereotypes. The film's blend of irony and absurdist humor, along with its sensitive portrayal of loneliness and the awkwardness of human connection, received special recognition. In the documentary competition, Pepa Lubojacki's If Pigeons Turned to Gold, the Czech Republic's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, took the top prize. Martin Kollár's dialogue-free film Chronicle received a Special Mention for its unique approach to storytelling. Tomáš Mašín's two-part historical miniseries Gerta Schnirch won the television and online competition, receiving both the international jury's and the student jury's prizes. The jurors praised the performances, cinematography, and restrained score, as well as the authenticity created by its bilingual Czech-German cast. A Special Mention went to Vojtěch Hönig's Nika, the opening instalment in the series Generation Nika. At the second Czech Leonarda Awards, a prize and stipend supporting female filmmakers, the festival awarded development bursaries totaling CZK 450,000 (approximately €18,400). Zuzana Piussi received CZK 200,000 (€8,200) for Virtual Reality, a planned feature-length adaptation of a novel about a young man who turns to video games after a climbing accident leaves him in a wheelchair. Bára Valecká secured CZK 150,000 (€6,100) for Nia at the End of the World, a post-apocalyptic coming-of-age story set a millennium after the collapse of human civilization. The documentary prize of CZK 100,000 (€4,100) went to Adéla Špaljová's The Voices That Remained, which explores the enduring partnership of three pioneering Czech world-music and a cappella singers.