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On Saturday evening, the 46th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival wrapped up and this year’s winners were announced – among them the Israeli movie Restoration, directed by Joseph Madmony. As a member of this year’s main competition jury, seasoned Israeli journalist Edna Fainaru was one of those who picked the winning submission.We spoke to her in the west Bohemian spa town and asked her about her experiences at film festivals all over the world, her take on the Karlovy Vary festival and if she still finds time to visit the theater,

For the tenth year in a row, a small workshop in the Prague neighbourhood of Vršovice is hosting a group of students from the US, India, Australia and other countries who come to learn how to make traditional Czech marionettes. The man who runs the courses and who teaches his international students everything they need to know about puppets is Miroslav Trejtnar, our guest in this edition of One on One. When I visited his workshops, the course was halfway trough and the students had just begun carving their puppets, which as Mr Trejtnar says it’s

With mushroom season in full swing, our guest in this edition of One on One is Jan Borovička, a leading member of the Czech Mycological Society, who combines a very Czech hobby of mushroom picking with his profession of geochemist at the Czech Academy of Sciences. How has the internet changed mushroom picking? Why are mushrooms safe to eat even after Chernobyl and Fukushima? And, most importantly, where are the best spots to find them? These are some of issues we discussed with Jan Borovička, who says this year’s mushroom-picking season did not

Many readers of the daily Hospodářské noviny look forward to Petra Pospěchová’s weekly column in the paper’s weekend magazine, where she devotes a double page to a lovingly written article about a certain dish or ingredient, as well as provides a recipe and a gorgeous shot of the food. She is also known for her in-depth, critical pieces on the Czech food industry. Petra Pospěchová talks about the research process of such long-form articles, what first sparked her love for food and how she became a food writer.

When the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival gets underway in a couple of weeks, it will offer viewers hundreds of movies across three competition categories, retrospectives, and a host of other sections. The man ultimately responsible for the selection of all of those films is Karel Och, who, at only 37 years of age, will this year serve as Karlovy Vary’s artistic director for the first time.

What will Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power mean for the Czech Republic? Can the Czech government implement far-reaching reforms without credibly tackling corruption? And is the country’s fiscal strategy too ambitious? These are some of the issues we discuss with Vladimír Dlouhý, our guest in this edition of One on One. Mr Dlouhý, a member of the Czech government’s advisory board NERV and a consultant for the investment firm Goldman and Sachs, served as the country’s industry and trade minister between 1989 and 1997.

Jana Ciglerová studied journalism in Prague and in London, where she started working as a UK correspondent for the daily Lidové noviny when she was still a student. She has since then written for an interesting variety of publications, including The Observer. Upon her return to the Czech Republic, she became the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, later launched a women’s weekly and currently works for the daily Mladá fronta Dnes as well as producing a TV show. In this week’s One on One, Jana Ciglerová speaks about UK media, feminism and how she first

Le Monde correspondent Fabrice Martin-Plichta has been living in Prague since before the Velvet Revolution. Indeed, the French journalist was working here at Radio Prague when those momentous changes occurred. Since 2004, Martin-Plichta has also been the head of the Czech Federation of Food Banks, an organisation which every year saves hundreds of tonnes of food from being destroyed and distributes it among the needy.

This week sees an important holiday for a fifth of the world’s population, namely Buddhists, who will be marking the anniversary of the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha on May 17. Some in the Czech Republic will be celebrating the day as well, and that will be thanks to a large part to Bhante Wimala, a Sri Lankan monk based in the United States who started the Czech Republic’s first two Buddhist centres, the Samadhi Meditation Centre near Mělník and the Lotus Centre in Prague. In Today’s One on One Christian Falvey speaks with Bhante

Jeffrey Martin recently scored a hit on the internet with a spectacular 360-degree photograph of the Philosophical Hall at the library at Strahov monastery in Prague. In fact, his 40-gigapixel panoramic picture of the beautiful Baroque room – which users can zoom in and out of on their computer screen – is believed to be largest indoor photograph ever taken.