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The Zlín International Film Festival for Children and Youth got underway in the South Moravian town on Thursday. The oldest and largest film festival of its kind in the world, which is now in its 62nd year, will feature nearly 280 films from 49 countries. I discussed the programme with the festival’s artistic director Markéta Pášmová and  first asked her what makes this year’s edition special:

With inflation at over 14 percent and cost-cutting the order of the day, Prague City Hall has announced plans to reduce electricity costs by dimming streetlights in some parts of the capital and switching off the special lighting of monuments several hours earlier. The measure should affect 140 significant sites and buildings including the Rudolfinum concert hall and Petřín Hill.

The Assasination (Atentát) is a unique 1964 depiction of the killing of acting Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak parachutists during World War II. It has been newly digitised by the Czech National Film Archive (NFA) and is being screened this Wednesday evening at Prague’s Ponrepo cinema. NFA collections curator Marie Barešová says that the digitisation was made on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Heydrich’s assassination.

The authorities are now creating a second tent city in Prague, in the Malešice district. It will handle some of the hundreds of Ukrainian refugees of Roma origin – many also citizens of Hungary – who have been sleeping at the Main Train Station in recent weeks. I discussed the situation with Martin Rozumek, head of the non-profit Organization for Aid to Refugees.

The Czech state began to form around the 9th century AD. This process was crucially influenced by the Přemyslids, Bohemia’s ruling dynasty which had control over Czech territory for more than 400 years. But what do we actually know about this period? How can archaeology help us understand it? And what were the key moments in the Přemyslid quest for power?

Thanks to contracts signed under the communist regime, the Russian Embassy received a vast amount of real estate in Prague, Karlovy Vary and other Czech cities free of charge to be used for diplomatic purposes. With just six Russian diplomats left in the country, the Czech Foreign Ministry says it is time to revise property relations and make the embassy accountable for how the property is used.

Milan Reindl, a former English teacher from a small town of Sušice, is the only Czech working as a model designer at the Danish toy giant LEGO. He only fell for the LEGO bricks in his mid-twenties and just a few years later, he landed a dream job in the LEGO Technic department. This autumn, Milan Reindl will also star in the first Czech edition of the Lego Masters show.

Thirteen years after being destroyed by fire, the Industrial Palace at Prague’s Exhibition Grounds is now undergoing an extensive reconstruction. As part of the works, which started about two months ago, restorers have now began to repair the massive stained glass windows of the palace.

The successful assassination of high-ranking Nazi Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak soldiers in Prague, code-named Operation Anthropoid, is one of Czechia’s proudest historical moments. This May 27 will be the 80th anniversary of the event, which is being commemorated with a special exhibition in Prague.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala says that the Czech Republic now aims to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defence by 2024, one year earlier than pledged in the government’s manifesto. The statement was made ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid in June. I asked defence analyst Matúš Halás from the Institute of International Relations in Prague what he makes of this new target.