26th Made in Prague Festival

Welcome to the Made in Prague Festival!

The multi genre cultural Festival is back again for its 26th edition.

Over the years the festival has evolved into a prime platform for showcasing Czech culture in the UK in the broadest possible terms and strives passionately to contribute to strengthening our mutual cultural ties.

This year’s festival programme centres around personal stories, experiences and commitments conveyed through a wide range of vibrant and contemporary ar tistic expressions. There will be new film productions, many Czech and European film festival award winners; music, from the most famous classical composers performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to sizzling jazz and the latest beats of electronic music; poetry touching on the least expected scientific themes; but also creativity and innovation that em brace a promise to effectively tackle our present and most pertinent issues such as future sustainability, climate change and gender equality.

The festival will offer over twenty events and programmes in collaboration with many acclaimed British partners and ven ues, such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BFI Southbank, Tate Modern, the Science Museum, The Royal Institution, the Picturehouse and Prince Charles cinemas to mention just a few.

I’m very pleased that the festival will echo also outside of London, reaching through out the country via three Czech film clas sics with amazing scores by Zdeněk Liška on the BFI Player.

Regardless of where you are, I hope your encounters with this year’s Made in Prague Festival will be profoundly enriching and heart-warmingly enjoyable. To accomplish just that I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Czech Centre’s endlessly dedicated team, our volunteers as well as many supportive partners without whom these wonderful “Made in Prague encoun ters” would not have been possible.

Přemysl Pela Director of the Czech Centre

Opening Gala

Tue 1 November 2022, 7.30 pm

Hall

A musical depiction of Czech nature is the main theme of the concert by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra opening the Fes tival. Vltava from Smetana’s Má vlast, an evocative picture of the river that flows through Prague, filled with ebbing and flowing woodwind and strings, will be com plemented by Dvořák´s Symphony No. 8 full of the bird song and thunderstorms of a summer’s day in Bohemia. To complete the evening Chloé van Soeterstède will conduct Jennifer Pike performing one of the most popular of all violin concertos, Bruch’s first violin concerto.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Jennifer Pike (Violin)

The Cunning Little Vixen

4–13 November Jacksons Lane

HGO, north London’s leading opera com pany, presents a fully-staged production, with orchestra and fabulous young opera singers and children, of Janáček’s time less and enchanting opera. Captured when young by the Forester, and brought up by him as a pet, Sharp-Ears escapes back to the wild – but her life continues to interplay with that of the Forester and his friends the pastor, the schoolmaster and the poacher – and a handsome young fox. Sung in the original Czech, with English surtitles. Conducted by Lada Valešová.

EFG London Jazz Festival: H15+Vertigo

Mon 14 November, 6.30 for 8 pm Pizza Express Live (Holborn)

A multiple winner of top Czech music awards (Golden Angel Awards), jazz ensemble Vertigo (Vojtěch Procházkapiano, Marcel Bárta - sax, Rastislav Uhríkbass, Daniel Šoltis - drums, Oskar Török –trumpet, Dorota Barová – cello and voice), debuts at the EFG London Jazz Festival, part of the Central European Showcase. Aiming to find their own musical lan guage, Vertigo, one of the most original of Czech-Slovak groups, is characterised by unbounded improvisation, sophisticated compositions bordering on contemporary classical, and refined song forms.

Electronica: Vision of Sound IV

Sat 26 November, 7.30 for 8 pm Rich Mix

A multi-sensory experience combining fabulous electronica and head-turning visuals. Using a mix of accordion, drums and vocals the Zabelov Group (CZ) mixes electronics and jazz embellishment blending moods and rhythmic sequences into complex cinematic music. The sing er and songwriter Дeva (HU), inspired by Hungarian folk songs, fuses  atmospheric smooth sounds, pulsating bass and polyphonic mantras into spell-binding dance music while the electroacoustic duo Late Arrivals (PL/UK) combines the sophistica tion of cinematic piano with avant-garde electronic dance music.

Bethlehem Light + Q&A

Fri 4 November, 6.30 pm

The Gate

Jan Svěrák, Czech Republic 2022, 100’, English subtitles

Cast: Zdeněk Svěrák, Daniela Kolářová, Ondřej Vetchý, Tereza Ramba, Vojtěch Kotek

Karel Šejnoha (Zdeněk Svěrák’s alter ego), faces a writer‘s block. His head is overflowing with unfinished stories and his fiction al characters start haunting his real life. The photographer Matěj wants beautiful Vendula, the car mechanic would like to be a healer, Bohumil asks for a miracle … And Šejnoha’s wife wants her husband back. The intertwined stories pass from reality to fiction and back exploring love, marriage, faith and miracles. This is a bitter-sweet comedy from the Oscar winner Jan Svěrák (Kolya) full of humour and irony.

Occupation + Q&A with director Michal Nohejl

Sun 6 November, 5 pm

The Gate

Michal Nohejl, Czech Republic 2021, 97‘, English subtitles

Cast: Martin Pechlát, Otakar Brousek,  Antonie For manová, Cyril Dobrý, Aleksey Gorbunov

The theatre group is celebrating in a bar when an uninvited guest crashes the party. A drunken Russian officer has come to sell some petrol, but soon the business transaction turns into a vodka drinking race. Spinning out of control, the game becomes a trap, heroes become cow ards and cowards become heroes. This allegorical, pitch black comedy delivers a highly original contribution to the topic of invasion and is extremely relevant in today´s climate.

Somewhere Over the Chemtrails

Thu 10 November, 6.30 pm The Gate

Adam Koloman Rybanský, Czech Republic 2022, 85´, English subtitles

Cast: Michal Isteník, Miroslav Krobot, Anna Polívková, Vladimír Škultéty

The friendship of two volunteer firefight ers who more often quench their thirst than put out fires, is tested when a van crashes into a fountain and the driver disappears. Convinced of a terrorist at tack, Broňa turns the fire brigade into a militia ignoring the advice of his friend Standa. Gently mocking the fear of the unknown and conspiracy theories, while providing an affectionate look at human weaknesses, this is a brilliantly acted, compelling comedy that pays homage to Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball.

The Websters Movie + Kids Art Workshop

Sun 13 November, 2 pm Czech Embassy Cinema

Katarína Kerekesová, Slovakia, Czech Republic 2022, 65´, English subtitles

Cast: Ivana Korolová, Adam Mišík, Ivana Chýlková, Jiří Lábus, Jaromír Dulava

Six year old mischievous Lili Webster is like any other girl, curious about the world and yearning for adventures and friends. But she is also a tiny spider who lives with her family in a lift engine room on the fringes of the dangerous human world. Six beautifully animated stories weave together into one big adventure where everyday challenges mirror the human world, charming kids and adults alike with wonderful inventions. Followed by an art workshop for children. Suitable for 4 – 8 year olds.

Official Selection Berlinale 2022

Kunstkamera + Intro by Gareth Evans

Wed 16 November, 6.45 pm

The Garden Cinema

Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic 2022, 51´, no dialogue

Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer opens the door to Horní Staňkov castle inviting us into his home where the living space is organically intertwined with an exhibition space filled with installations, paintings, puppets and products of nature, plus an unmade bed, an open bottle of beer and slippers. Providing a tantalising view into his world through the sequence of objects and an interpretation, Švankmajer’s inner landscape is captured on film and shared with his fans. A treat not to be missed.

Historie Naturae

Jan Švankmajer, Czechoslovakia 1967‘, 9´

Dimensions of Dialogue

Jan Švankmajer, Czechoslovakia 1983, 14´

The Last Race + Q&A with director Tomáš Hodan

Thu 24 November, 6.20 pm

The Gate

Tomáš Hodan, Czech Republic 2022, 102´, English subtitles Cast: Kryštof Hádek, Marek Adamczyk, Oldřich Kaiser, Judit Bárdos

A gripping drama telling the true story of Czech skiing pioneers Hanč and Vrbata, German athlete Emmerich Rath and one fateful race that took place in the Krkonoše mountains in 1913. Using historical re cords to reconstruct the race the film sets straight events that have been reinterpret ed by the political ideologies of the past creating a captivating thriller set against a backdrop of beautiful mountain panora mas where national rivalries are set aside in a race to save a fellow human life.

Special Gala

In this Czech answer to the hit series Suc cession, leading Czech actor Miroslav Donutil excels as Ivo Rona, the ageing CEO of a technology company who refuses to let go of the family business to the despair of his children, successors in waiting. When an embezzlement in his company is discovered, Rona is determined to find the culprit despite his failing heart. Then his secretary goes missing. Revenge, cor porate sabotage, or a well-played internet fraud? An absorbingly twisty, delightfully wry black comedy.

Bird Atlas + Q&A with director Olmo Omerzu

Sat 19 November, 6 pm Prince Charles Cinema

Olmo Omerzu, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, 2021, 92’, English subtitles Cast: Miroslav Donutil, Alena Mihulová, Martin Pechlát, Eliška Křenková

Competition 2021 Karlovy Vary IFF

Leaving to Remain + Q&A with director Mira Erdevički, Denisa Gannon, Petr Torák and Ondrej Oláh

Sun 27 November, 6.15 pm Genesis Cinema, London Migration Festival Mira Erdevički, United Kingdom, Slovakia, Czech Republic 2022, 90´

Three Roma living in Britain but tied to central Europe film themselves over a crit ical period as their lives are transformed by the combination of Brexit and Covid. All three face the universal dilemmas of em igrants: an ambivalent yearning for their home country and an ambition to succeed in their adopted home. Yet all three are conscious of their particular Roma heritage, a community that is almost never de picted on screen. Filmed by the first British Roma crew.

107 Mothers

Thu 1 December, 7 pm Czech Embassy Cinema

Peter Kerekes, Slovakia 2021, 90‘, English Subtitles Cast: Maryna Klimova, Iryna Kiryazeva, Lyubov Vasylyna Lesya has committed a crime of passion which brings her a seven-year sentence in one of Odessa’s women’s correctional facilities. She has just given birth to her first child, and now she is entering a world populated only by women: inmates, nurs es and wardens, women of all ages, wives and widows, daughters, sisters, pregnant women, and women with children too. If not for the colour of the uniform, it would sometimes be hard to tell who is who.

Closing Gala

The forerunner of Machatý’s more infa mous Ecstasy, this silent masterpiece tells an emotional story exploring the consequences of a missed train and one night’s love at a provincial railway station. Andrea, left pregnant by George, a city playboy, continues to dream of the pas sion she experienced and faces a moral dilemma when, as a married woman, she meets him years later. The masterful di rection and camerawork transform a sim ple story into a work of compelling effect while creating a benchmark in the devel opment of erotic photography.

Erotikon + live music accompaniment by Stephen Horne

Sun 4 December, 3 pm

BFI Southbank Gustav Machatý, Czechoslovakia 1929, 85´, English intertitles Cast: Ita Rina, Oleg Fjord and Luiji Serventi

Introduction by Michal Bregant, Director of the Národní filmový archív, Prague

3 You Must See: Music by Zdeněk Liška

3 Nov – 3 Dec, BFI Player

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Czech film composer Zdeněk Liška (1922-1983), the 26th Made in Prague Festival presents 3 out of more than 200 films for which the Czech ´Ennio Morricone’ composed the scores.

Watch for free as part of a subscription free trial. To access your special offer, simply visit player.bfi.org.uk/subscribe and enter code MadeInPrague22 upon signup to claim an additional free month of BFI Player Subscription, and discover the greatest global cinema on demand.

The Shop on the High Street

Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos, Czechoslovakia 1965, 125’, English subtitles Cast: Ida Kamińska, Jozef Kroner, František Zvarík, Hana Slivková

Winner of the 1965 Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Feature, this is a com plex tale of ordinary lives destroyed by war. Tóno is appointed “Aryan control ler” of a Jewish widow’s haberdashery in German-occupied Slovakia in 1942. Believing that Tóno is simply her new assistant, the two develop a friendship as he attempts to protect her from the encroaching Nazi horror. Complemented by an extraordinary Zdeněk Liška score, this is perhaps the most internationally fa mous film of the Czechoslovak New Wave.

The Devil’s Trap

František Vláčil, Czechoslovakia 1961, 89‘, English subtitles Cast: Vítězslav Vejražka, Miroslav Macháček, Vít Olmer, Karla Chadimová

In early-18th century Bohemia, an inno cent miller finds himself under investi gation by the Inquisition after daring to question the local landowner’s decision. At a time when religious authority is ab solute, the miller’s understanding of the natural world is interpreted as evidence of a pact with the Devil. Striking, atmos pheric imagery, inventive compositions and Zdeněk Liška’s minimal music build a palpable tension throughout, greatly en hancing a simple story and turning it into an evocative portrayal of a cruel but cred ible world torn between superstition and science.

Invention for Destruction

Karel Zeman, Czechoslovakia 1958, 82‘, English subtitles Cast: Lubor Tokoš, Arnošt Navrátil, František Šlégr, Jana Zatloukalová

A loving homage to Jules Verne’s world of science fiction, this is the story of the scientist Roch, whose inventions are coveted by the power-hungry Count Artigas wanting to take over the world. When pirates kidnap Roch, taking him to Artigas’s laboratory to develop a superweapon, it is up to Roch’s assistant Hart to warn an unsuspecting world to defend itself. Wildly inventive, the film broke new ground in combining live-action, animation and de sign, with Zdeněk Liška responsible for the innovative music.

AR Interactive Exhibition: Innovations for a Sustainable Future

Until 2 December 12 Star Gallery, Europe House

The interactive augmented reality exhibi tion, artistically rendered by the acclaimed graphic designer Pavel Fuksa, shows how scientific progress and innovation are help ing fulfil the 17 Sustainable Development Goals which, amongst others, aim to erad icate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve gender equality and avert climate threats by 2030. Demonstrating the power of human thinking and originality, the exhibition also presents important international research networks and scientific organisations re searching current global challenges in the Czech Republic.

Species survival: How AI can help conservation with Jonathan Ledgard

Tue 22 November, 7 pm

The Royal Institution

To protect nonhuman life on Earth, we need to give diverse life forms a digital focus. There is no digital platform for wild animals, trees or insects, and no way for them to make themselves known to us online. Jonathan Ledgard, a leading thinker on advanced technology, nature and risk, explores new AI solutions that can help represent nonhumans, aid their survival and demonstrate more completely to us their way of moving through the world.

Moderated by Henry Mance, chief features writer at the Financial Times

David Böhm & Jiří Franta: Who Tells Whom About What

Until 31 December Indoor & outdoor exhibition Czech Centre & Czech Embassy London

Using imaginary city models with staged micro stories, leading Czech artists David Böhm & Jiří Franta draw on current so cial and political issues to explore the city not only as a place of neighbourhood and coexistence but also as a crowded and fragmented world. Inspired by exquisitely staged narrative paintings, the artists’ own tableaux are displayed as an outdoor photo exhibition on the fence of the Czech Em bassy in London, while the models them selves are exhibited in the gallery inside.

Maria Bartuszová

Until 16 April 2023 Tate Modern

A survey exhibition highlighting the work of Prague-born Slovak artist Maria Bartuszová who has created around 500 sculptures, from small organic forms to commissions for public spaces, including works in the landscape, despite restrictions on her ar tistic life. Monitoring Bartuszová‘s career from the 1960s when she experimented with abstract shapes by pouring plaster into rubber balloons, to the 1980s when she frequently photographed her works outdoors to emphasise their closeness to nature, the exhibition brings together many works rarely exhibited in the UK.

© Maria Bartuszová in her studio, Vnútorný červený breh in Košice, Slovakia 1987-1988, printed 2016 Courtesy Gabri el Kladek. Reproduced from the Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice.

Hommage to Miroslav Holub at the Science Museum Lates

Wed 30 November, 7 – 10 pm Science Museum

As part of an Immunology themed Lates to celebrate a new exhibition on Vaccines, leading Czech singer-songwriter Vladimír Merta, British poet Jack Cooper and Czech poet Jonáš Hájek pay tribute to the great Czech poet and immunologist Miroslav Holub. Inspired by his scientific experiences, Holub´s poetry ‘based on an unsentimental, probing, compassionate, witty sense of the modern world´ was not published in Communist Czechoslova kia between 1970–1982, but was wellknown in English and was championed by the leading Irish poet Seamus Heaney and English Poet Laureate Ted Hughes amongst others. Holub’s work will also be discussed by a panel of high profile scien tists, literary figures and writers.

© Květoslav Přibyl

Czech-Scottish Poetry Connections

3–4 November Glasgow, Edinburgh

The year-long project bringing together Czech and Scottish poets who explore each other’s work through translation and learn about the context in which each of them writes culminates in a joint perfor mance in Edinburgh and Glasgow and later in Prague. With the participation of Niall O’Gallagher, Ondřej Lipár, Rob Mackenzie, Alycia Pirmohamed, Jitka N. Srbová and Olga Stehlíková. The project is facilitated by Literature Across Frontiers Director Alexandra Büchler.

of Events

1 Nov, 7.30pm

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Cadogan Hall

3 Nov – 3 Dec

3 You Must See: Music by Zdeněk Liška BFI Player

4 – 13 Nov

The Cunning Little Vixen Jacksons Lane

4 Nov, 6.30pm

Bethlehem Light + Q&A The Gate

6 Nov, 5pm

Occupation + Q&A with Michal Nohejl The Gate

10 Nov, 6.30pm

Somewhere Over the Chemtrails The Gate

13 Nov, 2pm

The Websters Movie + Kids Art Workshop

Czech Embassy Cinema 14 Nov, 6.30 for 8pm

EFG London Jazz Festival: H15+Vertigo Pizza Express Live

16 Nov, 6.45pm

Kunstkamera + Intro by Gareth Evans The Garden Cinema

19 Nov, 6pm

Bird Atlas + Q&A  with Olmo Omerzu Prince Charles Cinema

22 Nov, 7pm

Species Survival: How AI can help conservation The Royal Institution 24 Nov, 6.20pm The Last Race + Q&A with Tomáš Hodan The Gate 26 Nov, 7.30 for 8pm Electronica: Vision of Sound IV Rich Mix

27 Nov, 6.15pm

Leaving to Remain + Q&A  with Mira Erdevički, Denisa Gannon, Petr Torák, Ondrej Oláh Genesis Cinema

30 Nov, 7-10pm Hommage to Miroslav Holub at the Lates Science Museum

1 Dec, 7pm 107 Mothers

Czech Embassy Cinema

4 Dec, 3pm Made in Prague Festival Closing Gala Erotikon + live music by Stephen Horne BFI Southbank

Till 2 Dec

AR Interactive Exhibition: Innovations for a Sustainable Future

Star Gallery

Till 31 Dec

David Böhm & Jiří Franta: Who Tells Whom About What Czech Centre Gallery

Till 16 Apr 2023 Maria Bartuszová Tate Modern