Ian Willoughby

Karel Kovář, who goes by the name Kovy, is one of Czechia’s biggest social media stars. This year he reached a million subscribers on YouTube and was named top influencer.

Martha Dodd was a US spy for the USSR who spent her final decades in Prague. Her colourful life, and grim end, are the subject of a book by Brendan McNally.

Šimon Šafránek is the creator of a new podcast on CzechTek, an unauthorised techno music event that culminated in 2005 in clashes between police and participants. 

Michael Tate runs UK-based Jantar Publishing, which has issued work in translation, frequently Czech titles, since 2011. He has Czech roots and spent some years in Prague.

Writer-director Dužan Duong made a big splash at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival with his debut Summer School, 2001, dubbed the “first Czech-Viet” movie.

 Chad Bryant explores the recent history of the city through the prism of diverse personalities in Prague: Belonging in the Modern City, a book just launched in Czech.

The main prize at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was won by Better Go Mad in the Wild by Slovak director Miro Remo. 

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is currently in full swing, offering viewers around 200 works from all corners of the world on a very broad range of themes.  

Ondřej Provazník is the writer-director of Broken Voices, a new Czech drama that has been inspired by a real-life sexual abuse scandal in a well-known girls' choir. 

Michael Douglas, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard and Vicky Krieps delivered star power on the opening weekend of the 59th Karlovy Vary Internatinoal Film Festival.