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The psychological thriller Walking Too Fast recently triumphed at Czech Lions, winning five awards including best Czech film of 2010. The movie, set in the early 1980s, tells the story of a communist secret police agent who eventually loses his mind. But when the film was first released in February 2010, it only attracted some 20,000 viewers and ranked far below the top 50 films of the year. Following its success at the Czech Lion awards, Walking Too Fast has been re-released – but why did it fail a year ago? That’s a question for the film’s director

One of the gravest problems facing Czech society is the situation of the country’s Romany minority. According to official estimates, there are between 150,000 and 300,000 Romanies living in the country; they face disproportionately high unemployment and continued discrimination in housing and education. Some 80,000 of them live in socially excluded locations. To assist the local authorities in improving the living conditions in such cities and towns, the Czech government set up in 2009 the Agency for Social Inclusion in Romany Localities. The agency

Jakub Mareš is one of the operators of the Hub, Prague’s biggest co-working centre. They are a new kind of shared working environment where people whose main tool is their notebook computer can rent a desk for as many hours a week as they need. Located in a former printing factory in the Smíchov district, the Hub features a large open office space, meeting rooms, a bar and lounge area, and even a summer terrace. When we spoke there recently, I asked Mareš (30) why he and his colleagues had launched the project in Prague, and why now.

Professor Miroslav Bárta is the head of a Czech team of archaeologists working at a long established site in Egypt. He recently got back from Egypt and is seeking clearance to resume work there again in the face of the uncertainty about the situation in country. In this week’s One on One Professor Bárta describes the new theories about the collapse of the Old Kingdom he has contributed to and his thoughts about the more recent demise of the reign of president Hosni Mubarak. I asked him first of all when he had begun to be interested in

A group of Czech intellectuals including political analyst Jiří Pehe, sociologists Jan Keller and Tereza Stöckelová, and others, felt that ever since the fall of communism, political discourse in the country has been dominated by a right-wing agenda, articulated by a number of liberal and conservative institutes. To provide alternatives and to oppose these views from a left-wing wing perspective, these intellectuals established in January a new political think-tank called Cesta, or Path. In this edition of One on One, RP spoke to one of Cesta’s

The visual history archive of the Shoa Foundation of University of Southern California contains more than 50,000 testimonies of holocaust survivors. A year ago, Prague became one of three European locations where the complete database can be accessed. The database should soon be extended by testimonies from the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, that will also be made accessible from the Czech capital. In this edition of One on One, RP talked to the Czech filmmaker Martin Šmok, who works with the foundation and even shot filmed of the material.

Though still only in his late 30s, Professor Michal Pěchouček is an internationally recognised expert in the field of artificial intelligence. His work includes developing machines that are capable of working together without active human input, while he has also helped create sophisticated programmes aimed at improving flight traffic control – and thwarting the pirates that disrupt international shipping in the Gulf of Aden.

In this edition of One on One, Jan Richter’s guest is the Brazilian-born journalist Fabiano Golgo. When he first came to Prague nearly 15 years ago, he came as a cultural anthropologist to study the Czech people, a subject that never ceases to amaze him. Since his arrival, however, Fabiano Golgo has earned quite a reputation on the Czech media scene.

In this week’s One on One we talk to Brian Kenety, the editor of the English language edition of a newly launched website which is seeking to carve out a niche in the field of politics and business news. The new kid on the local media block made its official debut at the start of the month.

We have heard a lot about reforms to the school system in the Czech Republic, but what is it like being an eighteen-year-old about to face the new school-leaving exams. Tom McEnchroe is in just that position. His father is English and his mother is Czech, and Tom has had all his education in the Czech school system. He is David Vaughan’s guest in this week’s One on One.