Arts | All stories

In this week's Arts, we look at the annual Khamoro Roma Festival, one of the largest festivals of Roma arts and culture in Europe. For the past week the Czech capital has reverberated to sounds from as far afield as India, Portugal and the Balkans.

Jan Saudek has long been recognised as one of the Czech Republic's most successful artistic photographers, whose pictures are easily identified for the photographer's particular use of light, hand-tinting and positioning of models, often nudes, against painted or plaster studio backdrops. Anyone acquainted with US band Soul Asylum's CD Grave Dancers Union will be familiar with at least one Saudek image. Mr Saudek's work was also featured in the worldwide Absolut vodka campaign. Here, in the Czech Republic, the photographer is no less

Coming up in this week's Arts, we'll be speaking to the renowned Slovak director Juraj Jabubisko about his latest film - Bathory - described as the most expensive Central European movie ever made.

If you are looking for a place to relax on a warm summer's day then there is no better place than the Palace Gardens located on the southern slopes of Prague Castle. With their terraces, fountains, stone passageways and secluded alcoves these Baroque gardens take you to days gone by - and give you a fabulous view of the city.

Admirers of the music of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak remembered the great master this week, on May 1st, which marked 103 years since his death here in Prague. A new exhibition has just opened at the Antonin Dvorak Museum in Prague looking at the composer's relation to the Czech capital where he lived for almost 47 years.

In this week's Arts, we speak to one of the Czech Republic's most important contemporary classical composers, Juraj Filas. Citing Verdi, Beethoven and Mahler among his influences, Juraj Filas has won a string of awards and his works - described as belonging to the Czech neo-romantic movement - have been performed all over the world. May 1st will see the European premiere of his latest piece, De Profundis, a sonata for trombone and organ, performed at the St Nicholas church in the town of Humpolec. When Juraj came into the Radio Prague studio, he

"There are more places like this one in the country but as far as size, uniformity, and fame are concerned, we can rightfully claim that Chanov is our Ghetto No. 1." - a quote from a new 90 minute documentary on one of the most infamous Roma housing estates in the country. For almost a year, Czech director Ivan Pokorny filmed the daily life of its residents and explored why Roma and non-Roma Czechs find it so hard to co-exist.

The sound of jazz by a skilled trio of musicians greets visitors at one of the most highly regarded events of the season: the awarding on Thursday of the Czech national prize for the year's outstanding design. Traditionally the event, organised by the Design Centre in cooperation with the Quality Council of the Czech Republic and titled Excellent Product of the Year - is held at Prague's Bethlehem Chapel, and it is nothing if not prestigious. It draws hundreds of designers as well as government ministers, manufacturers and business insiders to get

In this week's Arts, one of Czechoslovakia's most infamous communist show trials could be about to become a Hollywood blockbuster. We talk to a young Czech film producer who wants to take the story of Milada Horakova to the silver screen.

Libena Rochova is one of the Czech Republic's best-known fashion designers, whose work has turned heads both abroad and at home. Last October, viewers were able to see "Dialogue" - an acclaimed exhibition featuring twenty-nine of her designs at Prague's Kampa Museum. Now, Libena Rochova has taken the show a step further: in April, seventeen of those pieces will go on exhibit at the Czech National Building in New York City.