This evening of remembrances is being held in connection with the fifth anniversary of the premiere of the film Leaving, Václav Havel’s directorial debut. The debate will focus on Václav Havel’s work as a director, with the atmosphere surrounding the preparation and shooting of the film also set for discussion. Guests will see excerpts from the creator’s manuscripts, behind-the-scenes photographs, costume designs and other documents.

Confirmed participants: actors Josef Abrhám, producer Jaroslav Bouček, cinematographer Jan Malíř and others.

Magdalena Grzebałkowska and Pavel Kosatík will present their stories of national history while a discussion will focus on what picture of the past reports and essays can deliver and how perceptions of our own history are being transformed today.

Second meeting in the series Evenings with Polish Reporters organised by the Polish Institute in Prague in cooperation with the Václav Havel Library.

Magdalena Grzebałkowska is a Polish writer and reporter. Her book 1945. War and Peace (2015) won the Polish-German Tadeusz Mazowiecki Prize for journalism. She is one of the authors of the anthology of reports and essays We Wanted to Be Free… Stories from the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. 

Knowledge of this programme should prove interesting to readers of The Power of the Powerless.

Debate with political scientist Pavel Barša based loosely on his most recent book Cesty k emancipaci (Paths to Emancipation) (Academia, 2015), helmed by Jáchym Topol.

The Russian poet and performer Dmitri Prigov will be presented by Hana Kosáková and Tomáš Glanc, who have prepared a lengthy portrait of the author and a selection of excerpts from his oeuvre for the spring edition of Revolver Revue.

Terezie Pokorná, editor-in-chief of RR, will host the evening.

Founded in 1985, Revolver Revue was one of the most important samizdat magazines and enjoyed the support and exclusive cooperation of Václav Havel.

The debate will be chaired by journalist Adéla Dražanová.  

In cooperation with the Hanns Seidel Foundation.  

In the book Aylisi describes the persecution of Armenians in Azerbaijan at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, leading to an avalanche of bitter criticism and even the burning of his books. The author had, however, been aiming to achieve the opposite – reconciliation, atonement forgiveness and the hope of peaceful coexistence.

Despite its eloquent, appellative tone, the book is a poetic text that succeeds not only in conveying the bitterness of conflict but also the subtlety of a deep personal experience of landscape and home. The evening will be chaired by Emil Soulejmanov.

The evening is co-organised by the Václav Havel Library, the Czech Association of Ukrainian Studies Specialists, the Department of Russian and East European Studies at the Bratislava Faculty of Arts and People in Need.

Journalists, artists and street musicians who have long taken an interest in the subject of busking will participate in a discussion prepared and moderated by Pavel Klusák.

“However, alongside the successes referred to, the work of the Brno group has also sparked a discussion in society. We regard this as one of the most important missions of public service media. Her programmes about minorities and efforts to reflect the very mission of public service media on screen were acts of courage that won her deserved recognition in the film community and beyond,” read an open letter written at Prague’s FAMU film school against the forced departure of Kamila Zlatušková from Czech Television, which was announced in March 2016.

The outlook for the Czech debate on Islam and the responsibility of the citizen as the co-creator of the societal atmosphere.

19:30 The Class

Screening of the French film The Class (Entre les murs, Laurent Cantet, 2008, 130 min.), winner of the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2008, which offers a raw view of a life in a secondary school on the outskirts of Paris.

In French with Czech subtitles.

A debate will follow the film.

In cooperation with the Festival of Arab Culture.

The Nazis and Soviet Bolsheviks used more than terror to force the obedience of the societies they controlled. Another key instrument of their power was propaganda. And in the first half of the 20th century film was the most powerful propaganda tool, a fact on which Lenin and Goebbels agreed. Taylor’s book summarises how in their countries the Bolsheviks and the Nazis subjugated film companies and later many filmmakers, as well as exploring the production of the most striking works of propaganda.

Translator Petruška Šustrová will present the book.

The EU struggled to prevent the collapse of Greece, the UK is threatening to quit the EU, Poland has followed Hungary in paralyzing its constitutional court, the media has been nationalised and Central European states have refused to be play a role in the acceptance of refugees, of whom around 1.5 million have come to the EU. The EU and NATO have intervened in Iraq and Syria and brokered a truce in Ukraine. Russia’s breach of Ukraine’s integrity saw it hit by sanctions. So-called Islamic State has claimed responsibility for all terrorist attacks. The shooting down of a Russian warplane by Turkey on 24 November also contributed to the escalation of tensions.

It appears that last year and subsequent ones may be of great importance to our existence, as it is no longer possible to expect the US to deal with all our problems for us. We need to get used to increased risk levels being a fixed element of our lives and to foregoing some of our comfort.

Confirmed guests in the discussion chaired by Petr Fischer: Miroslav Petříček and Petr Pithart.

Jiří Lábus will read excerpts while Vladimír Merta will perform.

Jáchym Topol will introduce the evening and chair a discussion with the author.

We will explore the views and strategies of Prigov (who as the creator of crocodiles for Soviet playgrounds became one of the most prominent and enigmatic Russian artists of the second half of the 20th century) in comparison not only with Havel’s Anticodes but above all with the works of a number of colleagues and adversaries in Russia and elsewhere.

Second evening in a series of lectures by Russian Studies expert Tomáš Glanc (Universität Zürich) entitled Living Souls II: Contemporary Russian Culture in Words and Images.

The then entertainment culture played a role in this – and its popularity endures to this day, transcending the totalitarian era. The regular output of the day, as well as pop as propaganda, ranks as an acrid and bizarre phenomenon of modern Czech history. Václav Havel described the media situation in such terms in the essay Zpívá celá rodina (The Whole Family Sings) (1975), which remains pertinent.

Pavel Klusák will select gems of normalisation pop and reconstruct their story.

The screening will be followed by a debate with the Croatian director Vesna Cudic about the film as well as the specificities of gender and Roma issues in Croatia.

http://kinedok.net/films/detail/37?locale=cz

The writer will present a 600-plus page collection of his essays entitled Dluh života. Články, eseje, glossy (Debt to Life: Articles, Essays, Glosses) (FHS UK, 2016) and his “trilogy” Moc peníze a právo (Power, Money and Law) (2014), Etika, život, instituce (Ethics, Life, Institutions) (2015) and Člověk jako osoba (Man as a Person) (2016) issued by the Vyšehrad publishing house.​

Presenter Jiří Podzimek will host the evening.

Organised by the Vyšehrad publishing house in cooperation with the Faculty of Humanitarian Studies at Charles University and the Václav Havel Library. 

What exactly has accession brought the Czech Republic in terms of both internal development and its position within Europe and international relations? How has the CR contributed to the European project – has it reinforced its stability and improved the outlook for further development?

Debate participants: Štefan Füle (former European commissioner), Tereza Novotná (Institute of International Studies, Université libre de Bruxelles), Tomáš Weiss (Department of European Studies, IMS FSV UK) and Michael Žantovský (Václav Havel Library).

Chaired by Vladimír Handl (Department of German and Austrian Studies, IMS FSV UK).

The post-1989 development of the National Gallery and the Slovak National Gallery, expectations during the 1990s, comparisons with other national collecting institutions and the current Czech and Slovak situations will be discussed by:

Jiří Fajt (director of the NG in Prague) and Alexandra Kusá (director of the Slovak National Gallery).

The debate will be chaired by art theoretician and historian Milena Bartlová.
 

Debate participants: historian Kristina Andělová, journalist Jaroslav Fiala, historian Jan Mervart, journalist Jakub Patočka and political scientist Ondřej Slačálek.

Czech Radio editor Magdaléna Trusinová will moderate.