Prague Talk

Czech interest in this year’s Academy Awards will centre on Mr. Nobody Against Putin, a Danish-Czech production nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category. The film contains footage shot surreptitiously by a teacher, Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, who wanted to expose war propaganda in schools in Russia. Talankin had no choice but to flee his native country before the documentary’s release and is now based here in Czechia. Radovan Síbrt is one of Mr. Nobody Against Putin’s two Czech producers – and I spoke to him just days after it also earned a BAFTA nomination.

The Trump administration’s refusal to rule out taking the Danish territory of Greenland by force has caused shockwaves in Europe, with the threat to a fellow NATO member raising grave questions about the alliance’s future. If NATO does cease to exist in its current form, what will that mean in practical terms for European countries such as Czechia? I discussed that and related questions with Michal Smetana, a security expert at Prague’s Charles University.

Musician Markéta Irglová has had a busy 2025, releasing a new album and touring with Glen Hansard under the name The Swell Season, a joint project that had been dormant for some years. The Czech-Irish pairing famously won an Oscar in 2007 for their song Falling Slowly. First recorded in a studio near Prague, it reached international audiences in Once, as well as a successful musical based on the hit low-budget film. After a full-band tour with The Swell Season earlier in the year, Irglová and Hansard returned to Czechia for a short series of intimate shows in late November. And it was then that I caught up with the former, who lives in Iceland, for a wide-ranging interview.

US-born Katherine Kastner is co-owner of Hunt Kastner, an independent Prague gallery that has helped develop the international careers of many Czech artists. Kastner herself has deep Czech roots: Her grandmother was related to Karel and Josef Čapek and in the 1980s she regularly visited Prague, where she was introduced to the local art scene through relatives, and notable artists, Pavel Brázda and Věra Nováková. I spoke to Katherine Kastner, who is known to all as Kacha, at our Prague studios.

Max Diesing runs Maximum Underground, an alternative music shop located in Prague’s Old Town for many years. In fact the American says he is just about to mark his business’s “33 and a third” birthday as a fixture on the city’s alternative music scene. But what was it like setting up an independent store here just a couple of years after the Velvet Revolution? And what motivates him to keep running the business after all this time? We spoke at the store on Jílská St.

Tomáš Koblížek is an expert on disinformation, a phenomenon that has grabbed many headlines in recent years. In a wide-ranging conversation, the philosopher says disinfo isn’t focused only on deceiving people but is also about “boring” them into losing interest in certain issues entirely. But, he argues, it is possible to combat it. I spoke to Koblížek in connection with the recent publication of the book Disinformation and Hate Speech from the Perspectives of Philosophy, Law and Security, which he co-authored.

Zuzana Stivínová is a well-known Czech actress. She played one of the main roles in the stage version of Václav Havel’s Leaving in 2007 and today is most commonly to be found on the boards of the National Theatre in Prague. She has also worked with such screen directors as Věra Chytilová and Miloš Forman, and starred in the acclaimed TV drama Wasteland. Stivínová, who comes from an artistic background, also spent several years living in New York in the 2010s.

Director Tereza Nvotová is enjoying one of the most successful moments in her career, with her film Father having competed at the recent Venice festival – and now greatly surpassing box office expectations. Nvotová, who is 37, is from Slovakia but moved to Prague two decades ago, and also spends a lot of time in New York. Our conversation takes in the genesis of the hard-hitting Father, her interactions with one-time strongman politician Vladimír Mečiar, and the current political situations in Slovakia and America.