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Among the most important guests at this year’s Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival was Laurent Becue-Renard, who shared his expertise with local documentarians at an Ex Oriente Film workshop. Becue-Renard’s first film War-Wearied, about Bosnian women coping with the aftermath of conflict, was screened before the masterclass. But when we met, I wanted to discuss his most recent work, Of Men and War.

The Italian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Mr. Aldo Amati, took office in October of last year, having previously served in diplomatic posts in Moscow, London, Washington and Tokyo. Miroslav Krupicka invited him to Radio Prague’s studio to talk about his impressions of the country, his mission and his plans for the future. And he started by asking whether the ambassador was at all familiar with the city to which he was stationed.

Prague-born Otto Jelinek became Canada’s ambassador to the Czech Republic in 2013, six and a half decades after his family moved to the North American state from communist Czechoslovakia. After becoming figure skating world champion in his early 20s, Mr. Jelinek was also successful in his next venture as a skating goods manufacturer. That was followed by a political career with the Progress Conservative party that included a string of ministerial positions.

Otto Jelinek (75) is in the highly unusual position of being ambassador to the city of his birth. Canada’s envoy to the Czech Republic was born in Prague during WWII but fled with his family after the Communist takeover of 1948. Fourteen years later, he returned to the city as a Canadian – winning gold with his sister Maria at the World Figure Skating Championships in front of a delighted “home crowd”.

Tour company Eat With Locals allows visitors to Prague to do just that, taking them to restaurants and cafés they might never find on their own and giving them the lowdown on various aspects of Czech food culture and more. The firm was started last year by Lenka Pavlíčková, who has both a background in business and a deep passion for food and travel. When we spoke at a café on Wenceslas Square, I asked Pavlíčková what kind of people were signing up for the Eat With Locals tours.

Englishman Benjamin Tallis heads the Centre for European Security at Prague’s Institute of International Relations. An expert on European affairs, including the EU’s border-free Schengen zone, he is also the editor-in-chief of the IIR’s recently rebooted academic journal New Perspectives. When we spoke at the think tank’s offices at the foot of Nerudova St., our conversation took in various aspects of Czech foreign policy. But I first asked Tallis how he had ended up in Prague.

Aleš Urbanczik is a practitioner and teacher of Rolfing, an alternative form of physiotherapy that also goes by the name Structural Integration. The one-time actor discovered the treatment in Switzerland, where he has lived for most of his life. But we spoke on one of Urbanczik’s monthly visits to his hometown of Prague, where he has been running Rolfing courses for over two years.

This summer, hundreds of thousands of Czechs have spent regular weekends and longer vacations at their chata (cabin) or chalupa (cottage) in the country. Such second homes are a deeply embedded aspect of Czech life. But what are the roots of the tradition? And how has Czechs’ relationship to their country house changed since the fall of communism? I discussed these questions and more with a leading expert in the field, Dr. Jiří Vágner of the Geography of Leisure Research Centre at the Faculty of Science at Prague’s Charles University.

Refugees have been in the spotlight in the Czech Republic in recent months, with news broadcasts regularly reporting on the number of migrants detained, issues surrounding asylum facilities and the sometimes unsympathetic pronouncements of politicians. But how well are the Czech authorities handling the situation? And what are the legal challenges faced by migrants detained by the police? I discussed those questions and more with lawyer Hana Franková, head of the legal department of the NGO Organizace pro Pomoc Uprchlíkům (Organisation for Aid to

Zdeněk Lyčka has just been made acting director of the Czech Centres, a network of institutes that promote Czech culture on the international stage. Mr. Lyčka, who is 57, himself headed the Czech Centre in Stockholm at the end of the 1990s and has also served as Czech ambassador to Denmark. When we spoke, I asked him how much independence the 22 Czech Centres around the world enjoy – do they have to coordinate every step with Prague, or do they have a lot of room to do their own thing?