Arts | All stories

The Czech Press Photo is a competition for the best photographs of the year taken by Czech and Slovak photographers. Last week, the results of the 8th Czech press Photo were announced at Prague City Hall. The eight-member international jury was busy for three days to select the best photos in eight categories, a single photo and a series in each.

The 2+4 Days in Motion 7th International Theatre Festival is currently underway in Prague. Unlike the last four times, however, this year it is not taking place in unusual spaces such as the old sewage plant in Bubenec, or a former brewery but rather in one theatre only - the Ponec theatre in the district of Karlin. I spoke to the festival's artistic director Pavel Storek, to find out more:

This music comes from one of the most successful Czech musicals, 'Joan of Arc'. Recently, the Ta Fantastika theatre in the centre of Prague kicked off the last one hundred performances of this original Czech musical, written by Jiri Hubac, with music by Ondrej Soukup and lyrics by his wife, Gabriela Osvaldova. But that does not mark the end of the musical altogether, because later it will travel abroad.

In this week's edition you can learn who won the best literary translation award this year and why the prize is awarded around the end of September. Also, the famous Zikmund bell at Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral rings again after three months of silence. The Czech Republic mourns the death of a leading children's film maker Milos Macourek. Czech soprano Magdalena Kozena gives a series of benefit concerts to raise money to help flood victims; one of the afected institutions is Prague Architecture Archive which is calling for help to save its unique

A new exhibition has opened at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, called Masters of European Glass. It is the first part of a whole series of exhibitions that will present works by renowned Czech glass artists. The first one is Pavel Hlava, who turned 74 earlier this year and is mostly known for his glass of everyday use - mostly glasses for all kinds of beverages that one can still see in many restaurants and many people also use at home. Many people use glasses and cannot see their creator, and the present exhibition at the Museum of Decorative

In last week's edition of the Arts, Radio Prague's David Vaughan reported on the extensive damage done to the Museum of Central Bohemia in the little town of Roztoky during last month's floods. A few week's ago in Newsview, we featured an interview with Leo Pavlat, the director of the Jewish Museum in Prague about the state of Prague's Jewish Quarter. In this week's Arts, join Dita Asiedu as she takes a look at the damage recorded by other galleries and museums affected by the floods.

One of the enduring images of last month's floods was the site of a wooden sculpture, a giant chair that had adorned the terrace of the Sovovy Mlyny Gallery in Prague, being swept like a child's toy down the River Vltava. The damage caused by last month's floods to museums and galleries around the Czech Republic is shocking, and the fate of that unusual wooden sculpture was by no means unique. In Prague there was also damage to the Museum of Czech Music by the Charles Bridge and the Saint Agnes Convent just downstream, housing the National Gallery's

The devastating floods in the Czech Republic in mid-August caused enormous material damage, and the cultural sphere was not spared either. Although the Minister of Culture, Pavel Dostal has asked the cabinet for 350 million crowns, it's extremely difficult to find financial means in the state coffers, and so only 10 million crowns have been allocated for repairing flood-affected historical monuments and other heavily damaged cultural assets. The total damage has been estimated in billions - by now, it's around 3 billion crowns, but this sum is not

Last weekend, the administration of the Lysice chateau in South Moravia organized for the first time night-time guided tours of the chateau. More that 550 tourists could admire interiors on the first floor of the building where there are representation halls, libraries and an armoury.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Jan Kollar, a Slovak poet - and in fact the first big poet of modern Slovak literature - priest and diligent promoter of Slavic culture during the period which is known as Czech and Slovak National Revival. An exhibition opened at the National Museum in Prague to acquaint people with this great 19th century Slovak man.