Lights! Camera! Prague! puts city’s filming locations on the map
Amadeus, Mission: Impossible and Casino Royale are just a few of more than 70 international films shot in and around Prague since the 1980s. Visitors to the Czech capital now can follow in the steps of their favourite stars – with a newly published map that will show them where all the action took place.
Casino Royale, the 21st film featuring 007, opens with a black and white scene of James Bond earning his double oh status by killing another agent. This significant moment in James’s career was filmed in a modern office block in Prague. If you want to see the site for yourself, just follow the new map entitled Lights! Camera! Prague! Ludmila Claussová, one of the map’s designers, is the head of the Czech Film Commission.
“One day, I was walking through Malá Strana and two American tourists asked me about the locations where Amadeus was shot. They wanted to know where Hradčanské náměstí and other sites were. It has now been 25 years since Amadeus was released and people still ask about the locations where the film was shot. This was actually when I got the idea to do the map.”
Commissioned by Prague City Hall, the map focuses on English speaking visitors to Prague as it has only been published in English.
“We chose international movies that are known in the U.S., the U.K. and Western Europe. We started with Amadeus, which was one of the first famous movies shot in Prague, and we ended with the last movie filmed here last year, the Chronicles of Narnia. We really focused on movies with big stars, movies that went to cinemas abroad and were successful there.”
Czech Film Commission hopes that map will also help promote Prague with international production companies who now often choose to work in cheaper Central and Eastern European locations. Theo Schwinke is a Prague-based correspondent for Screen International magazine and one of the creators of the map.
“The city was keen to remind people that it is a location for filmmaking, for big name filmmaking, and to show off another side of itself. But a map alone would do anything to stop productions from going to cheaper territories. That would require something truly significant to make the Czech Republic more competitive, something along the lines of introducing more soft money for film productions, or in fact a tax incentive or tax rebate.”
If you are in Prague this summer and feel like a stroll through its famous filming locations, the Lights! Camera! Prague! map can be found at the city’s tourist information points.
