Prague Talk

For the book Directed by Miloš Forman film scholar Andreas Halskov interviewed scores of people who knew or admired the late two-time Oscar winner, including such names as Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro and Courtney Love. The oral history explores Forman’s Czechoslovak origins and early films, as well as his subsequent career in the US, where for a period he was one of the most successful filmmakers in the business.

Czech author Petra Hůlová’s first novel, which came out when she was still in her early 20s, became a bestseller, and since then her works have been translated into over a dozen languages. Her latest title in English is The Long Version, translated by Hůlová’s regular collaborator Alex Zucker. Written from the perspective of a female author in her 50s, it explores themes of gender, potential abuse and intergenerational tensions.

British art historian, curator and writer Julia Bailey has been the head of Prague’s Galerie Rudolfinum for two and a half years. Last month saw the publication of her book Painting Paranoia: Cold War Art and Anti-Communism. When we spoke at our studios, the conversation took in everything from her institution not having a permanent collection to the fact it shares the grand Rudolfinum with the Czech Philharmonic.

Unusually for a Czech band, Ida the Young are just about to begin an eight-date tour of England. The group this year won an Anděl national music award in the electronic and alternative category – and made headlines for supporting Palestine in their acceptance speech. Just before they left on tour, I caught up with Ida the Young members Iris Hobson-Mazur, Marek Koliha and Pavel Kielberger. Hobson-Mazur is from the UK but has a Czech mother – and only started living in Czechia during her studies.

Václav Bartuška is today Czechia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. He first came to public attention as a student leader during the Velvet Revolution. Soon after he was tasked with investigating Czechoslovakia’s recently deposed StB secret police, a subject the then journalist covered in a best-selling book. More recently, Bartuška served for nearly two decades as the Czech government’s envoy for energy security – and we discussed all of these chapters in his fascinating life at our studios in Prague.

Artist and actress Ester Geislerová has spent much of 2026 introducing people to the story of her late father Petr Geisler. This began with an exhibition dedicated to the journalist and calligrapher at Prague’s DOX art space and more recently has centred on her documentary A Pint of Ink, which premiered at Karlovy Vary. The film is produced by Ester’s sister Anna Geislerová, one of Czechia’s most famous actresses. Ahead of the recent cinema release of the documentary, I spoke to Ester Geislerová, who is also involved in a project named Therapy Through Sharing.

After cementing its reputation in Czechia with an acclaimed multipurpose arena, the young Brno-based architecture studio Chybík + Krištof is increasingly going international. The firm has significant projects in London and Paris in the pipeline – and ambitions to work even further afield in future. I caught up with co-founder Ondřej Chybík, who is 41, at the company’s bustling offices in central Prague.

After holding a number of senior roles in Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs, Alan Gibbons became the country’s ambassador to Czechia in 2023. With the Dublin government taking over the rotating presidency of the European Union on July 1, I sat down with Mr. Gibbons to ask what that means for Ireland, and for his own role. We also discussed the scenes in March when thousands of Irish football fans descended on Prague, the gap between Irish and Czech attitudes to the EU – and much more.

Earlier this year, Jan Zikmund launched Zikmund Literary , an agency that primarily aims to help Czech authors find readers around the world. But how does he plan to achieve this? How do books from this country tend to fare in foreign markets? And what other states can Czechia learn from in this arena? I discussed these questions and more with Zikmund, who is in his mid 30s and previously helped promote Czech writing in English-speaking countries at the state-funded Czech Literary Centre.

Since its seat-of-the-pants beginnings in the early 2000s, the Prague Fringe has established itself as one of the leading events of its kind in Europe. Indeed, this year the festival is marking no less than a quarter century of existence with a packed programme that gets underway on May 22. The Prague Fringe was first dreamt up by two friends: Steve Gove, who still runs it, and Angus Coull, who is now back in the pair’s native Scotland. And ahead of this year’s landmark edition, Gove and Coull shared often colourful recollections of the festival’s beginnings.