Arts | All stories

You’ve probably never heard of Aldabra, an atoll in the Indian Ocean some 1,000 kilometres away from the Seychelles’ Mahé. Reportedly, the last filmmaker to shoot there was Jacques Cousteau in the 1950s. Until now. Czech-American filmmaker Steve Lichtag is bringing a unique documentary about the island in 3-D to Czech screens. For its animal inhabitants, every day on Aldabra is an adventure and sometimes a battle for survival.

An exhibition in Opava, called In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes has focussed on how, in the 20th century Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective was depicted and in some cases misrepresented or even parodied in the Czech lands. The show, covering book illustration but also theatre and film, was put together by art historian Tomáš Kolich.

Komiksfest, dedicated to taking comics and the graphic novel to broader audiences, is in its 10th year. The festival kicked off this week in Prague.

Prague’s Signal light festival has becoming massively popular and was rated one of the best festivals of its kind by the Guardian last year, when it attracted almost half-a-million visitors. The third edition was launched in the Czech capital on Thursday.

The winner of this year’s My Street Films project was announced earlier this week; we talk to Diana Tabakov about the winning entry as well as the competition’s main aims.

Contain[era] is a project bringing together the work of eight up-and-coming European artists from major cities including Prague, Rome and Berlin. Each artist’s work, installed in an actual transport container, is being rotated from city to city and put on display in outdoor locations. Overall, the project tackles expectations about the presentation and dissemination of artwork in what many increasingly refer to as the Post-Internet era.

Reading Helps is a long-running project founded by businessman Martin Roman to counter worsening reading skills among children and youths in the Czech Republic registered in a past International Student Assessment (which compared the results of 34 countries). Children who complete books recommended by a special jury gain credit to go to charities of their choice. The project has raised millions to help - teaching kids not only a love of reading but also showing how they can contribute to a better society.

There are few sports as physically and psychologically demanding as mountaineering, requiring remarkable commitment, readiness, and experience. In mountain climbing, Radek Jaroš is a legend, the only Czech who has completed the Crown of the Himalayas: conquering all 14 of the world’s tallest peaks – all above 8,000 metres.

Many of those who grew up in the late 1970s and 1980s in the West well remember the golden age of arcade video games: 8-bit and later 16-bit graphics and excellent sound that was the apex of electronic gaming and game design then. Since 2011, anyone in the Czech Republic wishing to experience what it was like can do so easily - at the the Arcade Museum in Červený Újezd just outside of Prague.

Last week, Radio Prague covered the UK’s NoFit State Circus at the Letní Letná festival of contemporary circus; this week we continue by looking at some other events and productions underway.