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Director Bohdan Sláma’s Shadow Country (Krajina ve stínu) won the 2020 annual Czech Film Critics’ Awards on Saturday. The black and white film which depicts life in a Czech border village during the most tumultuous period in twentieth century history also received an award in the best female actress category. Ivan Trojan, who played the role of healer Jan Mikolášek in Agnieszka Holland’s Charlatan (Šarlatán), took the award for best male actor.

The young US-based Czech academic Jakub Hlávka is an expert on health policy, working on government projects focused on the Covid pandemic as well as studying the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. But as we shall hear, the high-flyer also has experience in a remarkably broad range of other fields. I spoke to Hlávka, who is 30, from his home in California.

Interview with ballet dancer Miřenka Čechova, history of Rudolfinum concert hall

In a televised address to the public on Thursday, Czech Health Minister Jan Blatný called on Czechs to maintain discipline and not break coronavirus rules in order to help contain the coronavirus epidemic. He also raised the seriousness of the more infectious “British” mutation of the virus which is currently spreading in society. The appeal comes at a time when several Czech hospitals are being forced to divert all capacities to fight the epidemic.

The Brno Philharmonic Orchestra is currently recording the world premiere of a symphony written by Austrian composer Thomas Larcher, one of the world’s most renowned contemporary musicians. The title of the symphony,  A Line above the Sky, refers to one of the world’s most difficult climbing routes in the Dolomites.

A new book by Czech anthropologist Kateřina Mildnerová called ‘Namibian Czechs’ maps a fascinating and little known chapter in Czechoslovakia’s history. In 1985, the communist authorities enabled 56 children of Namibian war refugees to live and study in this country. Following the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989, the children were forced to return home. But thirty years later, most of them still regard themselves as Czechs.

News, health minister warns Covid situation is bad, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra recording symphony by Austrian composer Thomas Larcher, story of Czech-Namibian children focus of new book

News, court ruling on election law, assistance dogs, one-man workshop makes perfume bottles for Europe, US, Czech freediver aims to set new record swimming under ice

Pomocné tlapky, a non-profit group that breeds, trains and hands over assistance dogs to people with disabilities, celebrates its twentieth anniversary this week. When established back in February 2001, it was the first such organisation in the Czech Republic. Over the decades, its staff and network of volunteers have trained nearly 250 dogs to lend helping hands – or rather paws – to those in need.

The Constitutional Court on Wednesday issued a verdict invalidating articles of the election law that it said discriminated against small parties. In future, blocs of parties running together will need to gain only  5 percent of the vote to enter the lower house, just like single groupings, and it will no longer be necessary to take far more votes to win seats in some constituencies than others. I spoke to political scientist Jiří Pehe about the implications of the change and whether  the ruling could put the general elections, scheduled for the beginning of October, in jeopardy.