Arts | All stories

In this week’s Arts we look at Europe’s film heritage as compiled in a unique project organised by the Deutsches Filminstitut. Called the European Film Gateway (EFG), the project only recently came online. It makes available to users extensive digitalised documentary and other film material, trailers, original posters and much more, all compiled by participating European film archives and film houses. The Czech Republic’s own National Film Archive was one of the many institutions involved.

If you are a regular Radio Prague reader or listener, you will probably already be familiar with the Summer Film School at Uherské Hradiště. The long-running and largely unique festival in the Czech Republic offers audiences a rare opportunity to view new and classic films, as well as to take part in discussions, lectures, and even master classes with world-class film directors. In this edition, the festival’s artistic director Pavel Bednařík discusses participation by this year’s main guests, the highly-respected filmmakers Emir Kusturica & Aki Kaurismaki.

A new exhibition entitled ‘A Hidden Face of Baroque’ opened on Thursday at the National Gallery’s Kinský Palace in Prague. The show allows visitors a chance to view rare 17th century prints historically tied to the lands of to Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Many are faithful renderings of works by early Baroque painters such as Karel Škréta, expertly reproduced by engravers both in Bohemia and neighbouring Germany, especially Augsburg, renowned for printmaking at that time. The exhibition highlights all of the dramatic grandeur, symbolism and allegory

Mr. Vojtěch Kotek can be proud to say that he is a perfectly normal, young Czech actor, thank you very much. But on one particular day, almost every year for the last ten of his twenty-three years, he becomes an eminently well-known boy wizard by the name of Harry Potter (read: ‘Hari Potr’). Since the age of 12, Vojta has lent his voice to the ever-maturing wunderkind in the dubbed version of each of the eight Harry Potter films. And now – his voice an octave under Daniel Radcliffe’s – as the most famous fantasy series comes to an end, so ends Vojta

For the 46th time, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival kicked off on July 1st. As every year, celebrities and hordes of young film enthusiasts alike flocked to the west Bohemian spa town. Among the famous visitors this year are the legendary British actress Judi Dench and American actor John Turturro. Sarah Borufka was at the festival and has this report.

In today’s Arts we discuss a new exhibition at Prague’s Rudolfinum Gallery of almost forgotten paintings by iconic 20th century Czech-American graphic designer Ladislav Sutnar. Entitled U.S. Venus, the show features playful, highly-stylised nudes that fit within the designer’s concept of Joy-Art, a humanistic manifesto which looked ahead to the 21st century. On the day of the opening, Jan Velinger spoke to the show’s curator Iva Knobloch of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. She talks about Sutnar as a painter but also discusses his immeasurable

Last week we told you about the opening of the Prague Quadrennial, an unparalleled showcase of world scenography – design for artistic performance – that began in 1967 and only comes around every four years. The exhibits cover everything from costumes, sound design, and theatre architecture to multi-media theatrical and performance art… in short, if you imagine a wildish menagerie of all things theatre, then you’re half way there. For today’s Arts I spent an afternoon walking around one of the most special attractions at the Quadrennial, which is

This Thursday saw the opening of a new show in Prague highlighting 25 years of concert photography by independent Czech photographer Ivan Prokop. The respected artist has shot performances both in the Czech Republic and abroad, capturing both Czech musicians and world-famous artists on stage. Performers highlighted at Prague’s Leica Gallery include Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop and others.

In today’s Arts my guest is Brian Callaghan, a Prague-based author of a new action/adventure thriller called The Seeds of Cain. Inspired by biblical themes and medieval legend, the novel throws together an unlikely group of adventurers – including the hero John McFadden – to fight an ancient evil. The story takes them from a quiet corner of Prague to an archaeological dig in the Middle East and beyond, and it doesn’t let-up for 400 pages. Brian Callaghan came into the studio earlier this week and the first thing I asked him about was the threat

This Thursday saw the premiere of the long-awaited film Lidice, the first Czech production to tell the story one of the darkest periods in Czech history, the destruction of the village of Lidice by the Nazis in 1942.