My Prague – Šimon Holý

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.

Thanks to his Honest Guide videos, Janek Rubeš is THE face of Prague for many people around the world. The Honest Guide shows warn visitors about all kinds of scams in the Czech capital – but also reflect their presenter’s clear love of the city. Our tour of “Janek Rubeš’s Prague” begins on a bench by the park in the picturesque Kampa district.

Luke Allnutt is a senior journalist at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The Englishman’s career will enter a new and exciting phase in early 2018 with the publication of his gripping debut novel We Own the Sky, which has been sold in 30-odd countries around the world. Our tour of “Luke Allnutt’s Prague” begins by the Vltava River, on the embankment known as Naplávka.

Bianca Bellová this year won the top Czech literary award Litera Magnesia for her novel Jezero (The Lake), an honour that was soon followed by a European Union Prize for Literature. The first stop on our tour of “Bianca Bellová’s Prague” is the suburb of Radlice. The writer lived in the district until the age of 10, when the original Radlice village was razed to make way for Metro construction.

Former Prague mayor Jan Kasl takes us to his Bubeneč ‘hood and Malá Strana, where he lived at an exciting time.

Since becoming director of the Czech National Gallery three years ago this month, Jiří Fajt has secured exhibitions by major international artists and helped make its numerous buildings in the capital more accessible to the public. Our tour of “his Prague” begins at the Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia on the edge of the Old Town. It houses the National Gallery’s impressive medieval collection and was headed by the Prague-born Fajt himself in the late 1990s.