A British expat in Prague has taken to cleaning hundreds of Holocaust memorial stones dotted around the city because dirt and grime meant the people they commemorate “were disappearing for a second time”. Trevor Sage, 61, a retired engineer born in Finchley, emigrated in 2006 after his wife died, and first happened across the Stolpersteine or “stumbling stones” by German artist Gunter Demnig while on a tour of his adopted city. “My knowledge of the Holocaust was limited to what I knew from watching films and TV documentaries but leapt when I took a tour of Theresienstadt with a guide (Pavel Stránský) who had survived Terezin and Auschwitz. Years later I was walking around Prague with a Czech friend who pointed out some hand-made memorial plaques set into the pavement,” said Trevor. He explained they were called Stolpersteine. Czechs call them the “stones of the disappeared”. They commemorate the Nazis’ victims, including Jews, LGBT, Roma, Sinti, resistance fighters, political prisoners and the disabled. The first Stolperstein was installed in Berlin in 1996. Today there are over 70,000 in 2,000 towns and cities across 24 European countries. Sweden and Denmark will be added later this year. It is the world’s largest...
“Still the greatest and most influential comedy club on the planet.” Time Out On 12th November 2021, The Comedy Store will welcome in the Prague RockOpera a representative of the best that the European stand-up scene has to offer: Michael Odewale, Troy Hawke and Christian Schulte-Loh! Join us for a night of pure, unfiltered comedy from the very best of the British comedy circuit. Described as the birthplace of alternative comedy in the UK, The Comedy Store has been a launchpad for the careers of countless stand-up stars with the likes of Michael McIntyre, Eddie Izzard, and Jimmy Carr all performing on their world-famous stage. Tickets available at www.livenation.cz For the show on 12th November they will present: Troy Hawke Milo McCabe is a character comedian with over ten years of experience on the circuit. He has twice been nominated for the Amused Moose Best Edinburgh show award and was listed as GQ’s Top Ten comedy shows of the festival. TV credits include ITV’S Benidorm, BBC3’s Live at the Electric and various hidden camera and talking heads projects on Channel 4 and 5. As Troy Hawke he has garnered multiple award nominations and wins in various festivals across the world and...
Eurovision Winners Måneskin will play for the first time in Prague on February 28, 2022. The Italian rock band, who won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with their song ‘Zitti E Buoni’, are currently touring the European festival circuit. The concert will take place on February 28, 2022, in Prague’s Malá sportovní hala (Výstaviště), and tickets will be available from September 30 via GoOut. For the past few months, the band has been one of the most popular musical groups on Spotify and YouTube, the world’s two most-popular online music services. Their songs “Beggin’” and “I Wanna be Your Slave” both rank among the top 20 most popular songs in the world, hitting the charts in more than 30 countries each. And their three biggest songs were streamed more than 433 million times on Spotify in the month of July alone. They’ve also gone viral on TikTok, the music industry’s de facto hitmaker, and their respective followings on social media have mushroomed to more than 20 million people across the major platforms. The band are set to announce a new song, ‘MAMMAMIA’ set for release on October 8. It is their first newly released music since their album ‘Teatro D’Ira...
Czech literature has a rich tradition of questioning introspection that reaches back more than a century, to Franz Kafka’s existentialism, Karel Čapek’s sci-fi, and Jaroslav Hašek’s satire. Once the Soviets quashed the Prague Spring in 1968, however, Czechoslovakia’s authors were unable to freely publish fiction that could be perceived as critical of the regime. Many of them left for the West, but their writing remained focused on the land they left behind. After the Velvet Revolution, a flurry of novels finally saw widespread release, and three decades of capitalism have only shifted, rather than eliminated, the targets of critique. Here are seven novels by Czech authors published since 1989 that incisively, creatively, and memorably parse Czech society. Too Loud a Solitude (1989) Written by Bohumil Hrabal and translated by Michael Henry Heim “Not until we’re totally crushed do we show what we are made of.” For 35 years, Hrabal’s defiant narrator Haňtá has worked underground, recycling waste paper with his hydraulic press. He is not content, however, to simply crush bales for the paper mill, and instead crafts what he sees as works of art, homages to the written word. Haňtá also rescues books from the heaps he recycles, delivering...
This year, the nightmare for music festival organizers returned in the form of more lockdowns and the cancellation of even more events as new variants spread. After two years of hardship, organizers of the events are now trying to devote their energy and money to prepare for the new, hopefully, regular season of 2022. Preparation comes as it was recently revealed the losses of some larger festivals went up to millions of crowns. One of the biggest music festivals, Colors of Ostrava, had to cancel this year. Jiří Sedlák, the spokesman for the show held in Dolní Vítkovice in Ostrava, explained how organizations had no other option but to put a stop to the festival for yet another year due to the new Covid variants. “Last year, the organizers of Colors calculated a loss of more than 12 million crowns,” he said, speaking of the devastating effect. He has since tried to make money by organizing smaller and permitted events, either live or online. “We were able to survive only thanks to supporting from many sources – the fans kept last year’s tickets for this year, and thus helped us with sustainable cash flow. Further help came from our partners...
The ninth Václav Havel Human Rights Prize – which honours outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights – has been awarded to Belarusian opposition leader and activist Maria Kalesnikava. The 60,000-euro prize was presented at a special ceremony on the opening day of the autumn plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg. Maria Kalesnikava is one of the opposition leaders in Belarus and a member of the Co-ordination Council. She was the head of the campaign headquarters of former presidential nominee Viktar Babaryka, and has become one of the three female symbols of the Belarusian opposition and the struggle of the people of Belarus for civil and political liberties and fundamental rights. She was abducted in Minsk in September 2020 and made headlines when she tore up her passport at the border to prevent her forced removal and exile from Belarus. She was subsequently detained, and in September 2021 was sentenced to 11 years in prison for her political activity. Accepting the award on her behalf, Maria’s sister Tatsiana Khomich thanked the award committee and said her sister would want to dedicate her win to all those in Belarus fighting for...
The Metronome Prague 2022 festival has confirmed another massive act. Underworld, one of the most influential electronica groups in the world, will join previously-announced Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, indie-pop duo Oh Wonder, and American singer-songwriter Beck. Underworld is one of the most significant electronica groups in the world and pioneers of this progressive genre. Although the group reached acclaim in the 1990s, its foundations go back to the previous decade. Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have been at the heart of the group since its inception, accompanied by more than a dozen collaborators, including DJ Darren Emerson. Underworld’s big break came with the soundtrack to the cult film Trainspotting when two of its songs, Underworld Dark & Long (Dark Train) and Born Slippy became anthems of the 90s and for electronic music in general. Underworld is also significant that it’s one of the few global groups with millions in sales that never lost the will to evolve its sound, experiment, and cooperate with other musicians often from very different genres, such as minimalist improvisational group The Necks or rock star Iggy Pop. Besides its dozens of albums, Underworld has also released many live recordings, contributed to movie soundtracks, and...
After eight years of plans, construction of the new branch of the Municipal Library of Prague (MKP) in Prague’s Petřiny should begin at the start of 2022. According to library spokeswoman Lenka Hanzlíková, a building permit has been obtained and the library is currently looking for a company to build on the site of the existing branch. Part of the building, which will be designed by architects from the monom studio and the Zavadil studio, will be a chamber hall for cultural, educational and community events and will hold the necessary equipment for so-called coworking, study or creative meetings. The library will be freely connected to the garden and there will be a terrace for outdoor seating as well as a kitchenette for preparing snacks. After applying for a building permit last year, Hanzlíková hopes the new library will be completed within two years from the start of construction. There are also plans to open a new type of branch in the Municipal Library in Prague in January next year where readers will be able to borrow books and then return them via self-service facilities without the assistance of a librarian. Eventually, the plan is that self-service book return facilities...
Pep Bonet (Mallorca, 1974) is a co-founder of NOOR images and a Nikon Europe ambassador. Pep is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer who has traveled extensively capturing profound moments that represent the unbalanced world in which we live. His longer-term projects focus on African issues, with his most well-known project being “Faith in Chaos”, a photo essay on the aftermath of the war in Sierra Leone. Pep’s ongoing work around the globe on HIV/Aids and identity has led to several photography books and many exhibitions worldwide. He is also known for a long-term reportage on the rock ‘n roll band Motörhead. Pep spent many years (2008-2015) on the road with Lemmy Kilmister, the legendary singer of the band, and created an exceptional visual document of the many hours spent on the road with Motörhead. Pep crafted himself into shooting documentaries. This resulted in several short and long documentary films, amongst which the award-winning ‘Into the Shadows’, a pursuit into the lives of hundreds of thousands of Africans living in the inner city of Johannesburg. Pep’s work has been recognized with many industry awards. Pep won the Kodak Young Photographer of the Year in 2003 at the festival Visa pour L’image....
Can you still not understand the Czech obsession with mushroom picking? Are you still quite confused about the complicated Czech-Russian past? Some Like it Czech will change that and serve you Czech culture a bit unconventionally – on a silver tray of a movie screen. Every month, we will conscientiously pick a flick that is in a certain way typical for Czech culture and adored by local audiences. Movies will be complemented with a quick stand-up show by a witty comedian to help you understand the context of the screened movie and to learn more about Czech culture and its history. A genuine experience guaranteed. Hell, you might even understand your Czech mate’s weird manners. Or not! Some like it Czech was founded by two enthusiastic students who love Czech movies and want to introduce it to an English-speaking audience a bit differently. “During my exchange stay in Barcelona, I realized how much I was missing my regular visits to the cinema. At the same time, I was taking a course called Spanish society through cinema and I learned a lot about Spain in a fun way. And I just thought to myself, why don’t I combine it? That was...
Over the summer, the Czech government announced that it was lifting the prohibition on dancing in clubs. It was reported that teens and adults (even some seniors) were dancing in the streets in jubilation around the country at the stroke of midnight, when the ban was lifted. And so since the time is still ripe for dancing, the annual Lunchmeat Festival, has again invited first-rate international electronic music artists and DJs paired with new media artists for making unique synesthetic (physical and intensely visual) experiences. While ever evolving, they are even keeping the motto for this year’s festival similarly to last year’s “We See You Dancin’” since who knows when dancing will again be prohibited. This year’s line-up includes as usual some of the most impressive names on the electronic music scene, including Oscar Mulero, Lee Gamble, and Lorraine James. Mulero, from Madrid, has legendary status for electronic dance festivals and deservedly so for his thunderous and hypnotic yet experimental mixes, and he will do a live audio visual performance with artist Javier Bejarono, presenting “Monochrome.” Lee Gamble is a London-based veteran on the electronic scene with roots in drum & bass, and with his crafty weaving of rave,...
The sprawling gathering will be opened by Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival today (September 17) and brought to a close by Florian Zeller’s The Father on the 24th. Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival will have the honour of opening the 28th edition of the Prague International Film Festival – Febiofest (17-24 September), while Florian Zeller’s Academy Award-winning The Father will close the gathering. First and second feature films will be locking horns in the main competition, including Ana Rocha de Sousa’s immigrant drama Listen, Amanda Kernell’s follow-up film to the award-reaping Sámi Blood, Charter, and Ruth Meehan’s debut, The Bright Side. The festival is dedicating a separate competition section to comedy films, which this year includes Michela Andreozzi’s generational clash in Parents vs Influencers, Mouloud Achour and Dominique Baumard’s romp Patrick & Sebastian vs the Fake News, and Icíar Bollaín’s Rosa’s Wedding. Furthermore, the Amnesty International Febiofest Award will be given to a film dealing with freedom, human rights, freedom of speech or the fight for a dignified life. The festival’s sprawling structure encompasses a variety of non-competitive sections, such as Eastern Delights, dedicated to Central and Eastern European cinema, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, which will introduce Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s darkly comic drama Ulbolsyn. The Generation section presents films for the whole family, including Charlène Favier’s drama Slalom, while there is a genre sidebar called Planet...
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