Anthem fake: doctored video tries to smear Czech presidential couple at the Karlovy Vary film festival

A video circulating on social media claims to show President Petr Pavel and First Lady Eva Pavlová at the International Film Festival Karlovy Vary demonstratively remaining seated while the Czech national anthem played. In reality, no anthem was played at the event at all — the audio in the video was swapped, and the clip itself was ripped brutally out of context.

The presidential couple arrived at the festival two days before the Crystal Globe awards ceremony to attend a screening of David Ondříček's archival film "Whisper" at the municipal theatre. In the original footage, the audience rose to their feet before the screening and gave a standing ovation to the President and First Lady, who were seated in the balcony. It was this very footage that formed the basis of the manipulation.

In the doctored version, only the shot of the presidential couple on the balcony was kept, while the sound of the Czech national anthem being performed was dubbed over it. The author of the post claimed that the Pavels supposedly didn't bother to stand even for the anthem — but this is a flat-out lie: in reality, entirely different sounds were playing at that moment, not the national anthem. The standing, applauding audience also disappeared from the edited version.

The very premise — that an anthem would even be played before a film screening at a film festival — should have raised suspicion on its own. According to festival spokesperson Uljana Donátová, no such tradition has ever existed, whether at main competition screenings or any other sessions. "This is definitely not standard practice, it's never been done that way. The national anthem is not played before the festival's official screenings," Donátová stated.

The festival representative also dismissed the theory that the anthem might have been played specifically in honour of the President and First Lady's visit. "I can rule that out completely. At the screening of 'Whisper', which took place in Karlovy Vary on July 9, the national anthem definitely was not played," she emphasized.

This is far from the first time someone has tried to distort reality online by dubbing false audio over a genuine video. A previous clip was already documented in which words Eva Pavlová never actually said were put into her mouth. Experts warn that as AI technology develops, the number of such fakes will only keep growing — so any high-profile video is worth checking against the original source before trusting it or sharing it further.

By the Around Prague newsroom