Culture | Topic Archive

The sci-fi action thriller Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie, and shot largely in the Czech Republic, received a nomination for Best Sound Mixing at this year’s Academy Awards. Czech soundman Petr Forejt - a veteran on numerous international projects – was part of the team, and although the film didn’t take the Oscar in the end, even a nomination is considered a major success. This Friday Jan Velinger spoke to Petr Forejt in Radio Prague’s studio, asking what it was like to work on Wanted as well as his first reaction when he learned he was an Oscar

Recent statistics revealed that every tenth inhabitant in the Czech capital is a foreigner. Ever since the fall of communism, the English-speaking community has been one of the strongest parts of the city’s cosmopolitan culture. This week, Christian Falvey visited the Prague Playwriting Contest, which has become a staple event of that community’s cultural calendar.

The Committee of the Regions of Europe is meeting in Prague this Friday for what is the largest-scale event of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency. To accompany the conference, a festival promoting the food and drink of various European regions is taking place on Prague’s Wenceslas Square. ‘Ochutnejte Evropu’ offers passers-by tasters of French wine, Belgian beer and a musical programme as well. Rosie Johnston was at the opening:

Karel Kryl is considered by many to be the greatest Czech folk singer ever to have lived. He was the voice of a generation, with this song - ‘Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka’ - becoming an anthem of protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Kryl, who died 15 years ago this week, continues to enjoy a massive popularity in this country. One of the first people to spot his talent was DJ and music critic Jiří Černý:

My guest for today’s One on One is violin virtuoso Václav Hudeček. Originally a child prodigy, Hudeček played London’s Royal Albert Hall when just fifteen years of age. In the 1960s, Hudeček became something of a violin-playing sex-symbol, selling out stadiums all over Czechoslovakia. In more recent years, he has set up a summer violin academy to encourage young talent in Luhačovice. He is currently touring the world as part of the Czech EU presidency, presenting Czech music and culture abroad. When I met him recently, I asked him how he got involved

This week Czech Books talks to a popular bookman about town, Miroslav Peraica. Miroslav is originally from Croatia but has worked in the book trade in Prague for well over a decade and is now involved in running three of the city's English language bookshops. Over the years his interest in literature has led him to become involved in a variety, or as he puts it, a "mosaic", of cultural ventures, from organising film shows, hosting lectures, editing a literary magazine, and, most recently, setting up a publishing house to translate contemporary

Prague is currently hosting an exhibition reflecting the impact of Tibet’s culture on the rest of the world, particularly on the Czech Republic. The exhibition called Tibet in our mind shows traditional Tibetan art as well as Tibet-inspired works by Czech artists. We asked the exhibition’s curator Zuzana Ondomišiová to tell us what’s on display and why Czechs are so fascinated by all things Tibetan.

These are fine times for the arts in Prague. The Czech capital is receiving a great deal of attention thanks to the EU presidency, and one of the ways the Prague municipal government is availing itself of the opportunity is by taking various art projects under its wing. Indeed, there are so many things vying for notice, from comic book exhibits to Andy Warhol’s motion pictures, that one tends to lose track of them all. The project we're looking at today however is bringing something slightly different to Prague’s gothic squares and murky alleys:

Over 170 years after it was created, Antonín Langweil’s unique and remarkable cardboard model of Prague has just been unveiled in a new form – a digital version which means users can get a taste of the city as it was in the early 19th century on a computer screen.

How do you imagine the soundtrack to an exhibition called ‘Decadence’ would sound? Czech musicians Monika Načeva and David Cajthaml were asked to create just that – a piece of modern music to accompany an exhibit dedicated to the excesses of the fin de siecle. So what did they do? They produced an 18-minute reworking of Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘la decadanse’. The vinyl was launched in Prague on Tuesday, Rosie Johnston was there: