Czech films have a long tradition at the Locarno International Film Festival, dating back almost to the very beginning of this prestigious film event in 1946 – the first Czech (Czechoslovak) film, Violin and Dream (1946) by Jiří Krška, was screened at the festival in 1947. This tradition, which has yielded several important film awards (most recently the Golden Leopard for Nightsiren by Tereza Nvotová) now continues with the selection of two feature-length films, Living Large by Kristina Dufková and Block 5 by Klemen Dvornik, into the Locarno Kids program, a carefully selected range of movies for children, teenagers, and families.

Living Large (CZ, SK, FR), a colorful puppet animation by Kristina Dufková, produced by Matěj Chlupáček of Barletta and co-produced by Czech Television, NOVINSKI (SK), and Novanima Productions (FR), continues its successful run around the prestigious world festivals. After its world premiere at the Annecy IAFF, where the film garnered the Contrechamp Jury Award, one of the two prizes awarded in the Contrechamp competition, which complements the Official Competition, the film found its way into the program of the 26th edition of the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), ranking among the biggest film festivals in Asia, and was also showcased – in its Czech premiere – at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Living Large addresses the topic of teenage overweight in the sensitive coming-of-age story based on the book by French author Mikaël Ollivier. Gebeka International, which handles the sales, has already managed to sell the film to several territories in advance of its Annecy premiere, including Japan, Spain, Portugal, and countries in the Baltics and the Middle East.

Block 5 (SI, CZ, HR, RS) by Slovenian multi-genre director and producer Klemen Dvornik, produced by Barbara Daljavec and Branislav Srdić of A Atalanta and co-produced by Jakub Rálek of BFILM.cz on the Czech side, tells the story of the twelve-year-old Mia, who realizes that the playground near her new block will be turned into a parking lot. To save the playground from its immediate obliteration, Mia teams up with local skateboarders led by Rudi. Block 5 is Dvornik's fifth feature film. His biggest international success so far was the TV series The Lake (2019), which premiered globally at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Both films were supported by the Czech Film Fund at a certain stage of their development. Living Large with a total amount of 347 000 EUR and Block 5 with 79 000 EUR.