My Prague

Young director Šimon Holý this week sees his film And Then There Was Love enter Czech cinemas. It is the second feature film by Holý, who in addition composes music for films and until recently was also a presenter on alternative station Radio Wave. Our tour of “his Prague” begins on the square Náměstí Míru, one of the centres of the Vinohrady district.

Jakub Kaifosz is one of the Czech Republic’s most notable and original independent musicians and performs under the name Lazer Viking. His latest album, Tunnel Vision, is due out in September. Kaifosz has a very close attachment to Prague’s Letná district, where our tour of “his Prague” begins in the spacious bar of the Bio Oko arthouse cinema.

Helena Koutná is one of the Czech Republic’s leading interpreters. Many people know her from the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where for decades she has been appearing onstage alongside some of the planet’s biggest movie stars. Koutná lives in the city’s seventh district and our tour of “her Prague” begins at the café and brewery Lajka, on the street U Akademie.  

Slovenian filmmaker Olmo Omerzu has been living in Prague for a decade and a half. In that time the director has enjoyed lots of success with Czech-made movies such as Winter Flies and his most recent work, Bird Atlas. Our tour of “his Prague” begins at the spacious café Kolektor at the Trade Fair Palace (Veletržní palace) in Prague 7, which was previously known as Café Jedna.

Gerald Turner is a leading translator of Czech literature into English and is currently preparing to take on no less a work than Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk. Though now mainly based in his native England, throughout the 1970s Turner lived in Prague, where he lost his enthusiasm for communism and fell in with lots of notable figures on the city’s art scene. Our tour of “his Prague” begins at the pub U Parlamentu in the Old Town.