Finale Plzen

Finale Plzen held its first edition in 1968 during a brief political thaw, awarding its Golden Kingfisher prize to Ewald Schorm's Courage for Every Day, before being shut down within three years under Normalization-era cultural controls. Revived in 1990 after the Velvet Revolution, it has grown into the Czech Republic's largest showcase of national cinema, running competition sections for feature films, documentaries, television productions and student work each spring.

Finale Plzen held its first edition in 1968, screening the best of Czechoslovak filmmaking during the brief political thaw that preceded the Soviet-led invasion later that same year, with Ewald Schorm's Courage for Every Day winning the inaugural Golden Kingfisher award, a trophy whose kingfisher symbol, sometimes called the Flying Gemstone, became the festival's lasting emblem of hope and faith in political change.