Culture

SCANDI Festival Presents Highlights of Scandinavian Cinema

Displaying the best that current Scandinavian production has to offer, SCANDI – Nordic Film Lesson, presents a cross-section of films and genres that define the cinematic North. SCANDI takes place in the Czech Republic from 19 to 25 January and in Slovakia from 24 to 30 January. The discussion with film professionals will take place on 25 January. You can watch the live stream on Cineuropa, Film Europe and SCANDI Facebook page from 15:30 till 18:00. SCANDI’s ambition is to introduce Slovak and Czech audiences to Nordic film excellence. Every year since 2015, SCANDI brings the highest quality and most remarkable cinematographic works of various genres from five Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland). This year SCANDI brings a lot of awarded films such are Margrete – Queen of the North, Flee, Tigers, Ninjababy, Tove, Wild Men, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, and many more. One section will be focused on the Danish actress Trine Dyrholm. Film Europe, which organizes the SCANDI film festival, for the first time prepared a special online industry discussion. “The panelists will talk about production, co-production, distribution, festival representation, and education in the field of Scandinavian cinema. Defining, researching, and discussing how it is possible that Scandinavian cinema has such a strong...

 by Prague Morning Jan 18, 2022

Movie Director Agnieszka Holland to Present Movie on Kafka’s Life

The great director Agnieszka Holland is working on a film entitled Kafka and will be presented at the Berlinale next month.

 by Prague Morning Jan 17, 2022
Palach Week 1989

‘Palach Week’ – The Beginning of the End for Czechoslovak Communism

The 20th anniversary of Jan Palach’s self-immolation brought many thousands onto the streets for protests that had no precedent in communist Czechoslovakia. Palach Week, as it became known, began on January 15, 1989, and saw running battles between demonstrators and riot police. The public commemoration was organized by the following opposition movements: České děti (Czech Children), Charta 77 (Charter 77), Mírový klub Johna Lennona (The John Lennon Peace Club), Nezávislé mírové sdružení (The Independent Peace Association), and Společenství přátel USA (The Society of Friends of the USA. For seven days, demonstrators who tried to gather on Wenceslas Square were beaten and sprayed with water cannons. Hundreds were arrested, among them top dissidents such as Václav Havel, and the events are seen by some as foreshadowing the Velvet Revolution, 10 months later. On 21 January 1989, at the end of “Jan Palach Week”, the authorities together with security forces blocked the national pilgrimage to Jan Palach’s grave in Všetaty. Václav Havel was sentenced to nine months imprisonment in a strict-regime prison. Other opposition activists arrested in Wenceslas Square were put on trial with him. The opposition movements launched a campaign for their release, which helped to bridge the gap between the activists and the wider public. The considerable support inspired Václav...

 by Prague Morning Jan 15, 2022

February 5-6: Visit the National Gallery for Free

On the weekend of 5 and 6 February, four branches of the National Gallery in Prague can be visited free of charge.

 by Prague Morning Jan 14, 2022

650,000 People Visited the Prague Towers Last Year

The Czech capital city is also known as the City of a Hundred Spires (‘Stověžatá Praha’). Only a few people know exactly how many towers there are in Prague; however, it is certainly over one hundred. In Prague, towers of all kinds are everywhere, even in the least expected places. The City of Prague Museum manages the six most famous and well-known of them. Last year, 649,147 visitors visited the Prague Towers, which is about four percent more year-on-year. The most visited was the Petřín Lookout Tower (Petřínská rozhledna), according to an analysis by Prague City Tourism (PCT). It attracted 242,803 visitors, about 8,587 more than last year. 176,714 people visited the mirror maze, one of the most popular family destinations in the city. The building, shaped like a small castle, houses the “Hall of Laughter”, a labyrinth of variously curved and twisted mirrors that will instantly turn you into a dwarf, a beach ball, or a beanpole. This place is great fun for kids and adults alike. The second most visited tower, the Old Town Hall (‘Staroměstská mostecká věž’), recorded a decrease in visitors. Last year, 124,248 people visited it, (about 4,000 less year-on-year). Compared to 2019, there was...

 by Prague Morning Jan 13, 2022

False Friends: 9 Words That English Speakers Might Confuse in Czech

No matter your mother tongue, as a foreign language learner you will sometimes encounter “false friends”.

by Prague Morning Jan 13, 2022

Five Czech RAF Crew Missing for 80 Years Identified

Five Czech crewmembers who were reported missing during the Second World War more than 80 years ago have been recovered and identified.

 by Prague Morning Jan 12, 2022
Kunsthalle Praha new museum

Prague Will Soon Have a New Museum

A new space for Czech and international modern and contemporary art is opening in Prague: Kunsthalle Praha.

 by Prague Morning Jan 12, 2022

Charter 77 Marks 45th Anniversary

Charter 77, the most famous manifesto criticizing the Communist government, came to light on January the 6th, 1977.

by Prague Morning Jan 06, 2022
Věra Čáslavská

Věra Čáslavská and the Forgotten Story of Her 1968 Olympics Protest

Mexico City, 1968. A newly-crowned Olympic champion is about to make the life-changing decision to stage a political protest on the podium. The protest came from Czech gymnast Věra Čáslavská as a reaction to the Soviet-led invasion of her country two months earlier. Caslavska turned her head away from the flag of what she called the “invaders’ representatives”, the Soviet Union. The action was understated. The ramifications were huge, as World Service programme Sporting Witness has discovered through the first-hand account of British gymnast Mary Prestidge. Prestidge spent time training alongside Čáslavská in the build-up to the Mexico Games as part of an exchange programme. The Czech gymnast was already a superstar, having won three gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, including the individual all-around title. Her chances of repeating such dominance were dealt a huge blow in the run-up to the Olympics, however, when she was forced into hiding by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. When the ‘Prague Spring’ reforms were consequently halted, Čáslavská, a vocal opponent of Soviet rule, feared she would be arrested so she retreated to a remote forest hideout. The Olympics were just two months away. Rather than prepare for Mexico in a gymnasium, Čáslavská...

 by Prague Morning Jan 05, 2022
prague spring 5 january

January 5, 1968: the Prague Spring Begins

The Prague Spring began with the ascension of the reformist Alexander Dubček to the post of first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

by Prague Morning Jan 04, 2022
Czechoslovaks Interned in Soviet Gulags

Secret Files of Czechoslovaks Interned in Soviet Gulags Released

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the declaration of a Soviet amnesty on 3 January 1942 pertaining to Czechoslovak citizens imprisoned and interned in the USSR, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ÚSTR) will publish a collection of NKVD investigative files in cooperation with the Department of Cybernetics at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. These files were kept on 1,000 Czechoslovaks out of a total of approximately 8,000 who were imprisoned in Gulag camps during WWII. This represents the first collection of Soviet secret service files obtained within the framework of systematic digitalisation at the State Archive of the Zakarpatska Oblast (DAZO) in Uzzhorod. “The investigation files include arrest reports, fingerprints, photographs, interrogation reports, charges, a gulag’s discharge, and a rehabilitation decision. The files include personal photographs and documents of those arrested by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which in Russian is abbreviated to NKVD, ” said historian Adam Hradilek, project leader of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. According to Hradilek, the documents represent about one-fifth of the files on Czechoslovak refugees to the USSR. The first Czechs that were repressed in the Soviet Union were those that settled in Imperial Russia...

 by Prague Morning Jan 03, 2022

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