Related articles
Czech ScienceFilm documentary reveals wildlife in puddle
"We are not able to define exactly what life is but we know for sure
that there must have been water at its origin," - those are the first
words of an unusual film documentary that was recently presented by its
authors at the Czech Academy of Sciences. The film proves that you don't
need expensive scuba-diving equipment to be able to see dramatic
underwater scenes. It shows that the wildlife in a humble puddle in a
South Bohemian forest can be just exciting. More
MagazineMagazine
An Indonesian jungle is coming alive in Prague. Czech entomologists spend
two years filming life in a puddle. Toyota's new generation Prius hybrid
car comes to the Czech Republic. And, can you make a stone float? Find out
more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarova
More
Current AffairsCharismatic Czech-Romany singer Ida Kelarova talks about a documentary on her life and work
Thursday saw the Prague premiere of a fascinating documentary film, made by
the Austrian director Stephan Settele. The film, called "Gilaven!
Sing!" looks at the life and work of one of the most charismatic of
all Czech performers, the half Czech, half Romany singer, Ida Kelarova. As
well as engaging audiences as a hugely gifted and dynamic performer in her
own right, Ida Kelarova has won international acclaim for her musical
workshops, where she helps people to find ways of releasing their emotions
into song. She has a fundamental belief that everyone can sing and that
singing is bound up with something far deeper within you. In the course of
her work Ida Kelarova has become something of an ambassador of Romany
culture, drawing attention to its riches, and also to the needs of Central
Europe's largest and most maligned ethnic minority. Here Ida tells us
something about Stephan Settele's film, which tries to map some of her
work.
More
Current AffairsTatinek: a documentary tribute to actor-writer Zdenek Sverak by director son Jan
Zdenek Sverak, who is 68, would make many people's list of greatest living
Czechs. An actor, co-creator of the much-loved Jara Cimrman theatre and
writer of some of the country's most popular comic films, he is also a
writer of children's songs, a great champion of the Czech language and a
former Czech Radio broadcaster. His greatest international success was the
1996 Oscar-winning film Kolya, which he wrote and starred in. Zdenek Sverak
is now the subject of a documentary called Tatinek (Dad) by his son Jan,
the director of Kolya. He says that in Tatinek he got closer to the
essence of his father than another filmmaker might have.
More
Current AffairsFilm festival offers a chance to see an extraordinary forgotten movie from the fifties
Next week Prague movie-goers will have the chance to see a forgotten film
by the Oscar winning directors Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, who were legends
of the Czechoslovak cinema of the 1960s. But this is a film that most
would prefer to forget. "Unos" - or "Hijack" - from
1952 is Stalinist propaganda at its most crass - telling the story of two
wicked imperialists, who decide to escape from communist Czechoslovakia to
the West by hijacking a passenger plane, only to be "swallowed up in
the mud of the émigré camp".
More
Current AffairsA Czech TV documentary explores how elderly members of Jewish communityregained sense of friendship, hope, in senior citizens' home in Prague
A new Czech TV documentary shows that old age does not have to be a time of
loneliness. The Charles Jordan senior citizens' home in Prague helps
residents to regain a sense of community and self. What's even more
remarkable is the fact that the home's residents share a common heritage
and most of them share a tragic past: they all lost someone in the
Holocaust and themselves survived the horrors of the camps.
More
Current AffairsThe most successful spoof in Czech history strikes a chord
The weekly The Economist has called it one of the funniest European films
of
the year and the most successful spoof in Czech history: we are of course
talking about Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda's "Czech Dream" - a
new documentary showing how two film students fooled hundreds of Czech
shoppers to believe in a non-existent new mall - with extraordinarily
funny results. Following initial success at home, the film went on to its
international premiere at Locarno last week and we caught up with one of
the filmmakers, Filip Remunda, via telephone to get a sense of the mood at
the prestigious fest. More
Current AffairsDocumentary film legend Albert Maysles special guest at Karlovy Vary
One of this year's special guests at the Karlovy Vary International Film
Festival is Albert Maysles, a legend in the world of documentary film
making. As well as capturing the lives of 'ordinary' people, he has - at
very close quarters - caught the likes of John F Kennedy, Fidel Castro,
the Beatles and Muhammad Ali with his handheld camera. Mr Maysles, who is
now 77, said it was gratifying that his work - some of it from the early
1960s - was still finding an appreciative audience today.
More
Current AffairsOne World - human rights film festival
Next Wednesday, the 6th annual International Human Rights Documentary film
festival begins in Prague. Last year, Jeden Svet or One World attracted
22,500 people. With 156 screenings, festival organizers hope to see 60,000
visitors at the various venues around the city this year. Dita Asiedu
reports:
More
Current AffairsA detective story: a school project to find Jewish children rescued from Prague in 1939
Many Radio Prague listeners will be familiar with the story of Sir Nicholas
Winton, the British man in Prague who managed to save 669 Jewish children
at the beginning of the Nazi occupation in 1939, by getting them visas to
Britain. For nearly 50 years, Sir Nicholas - now 94 - told no-one about
what he'd done, not even his own wife. When the story finally emerged, it
was made into an award-winning film called "The Power of Good".
A DVD of the film has just been released for schools, containing more than
an hour of extra material which could help to track down four hundred of
Sir Nicholas's "children" whose fate since their rescue has
remained unknown. David Vaughan has been speaking to the film's director,
Matej Minac, and also two of the people Nicholas Winton rescued - Eva
Krusinova and Alice Klimova, about the project, which aims to involve
Czech schoolchildren in the hunt.
More
+1
