We spent the weekend in Strážnice with Kája's family. Every year, Strážnice hosts the International Folklore Festival, the largest and oldest folklore festival in Europe.
Czech TV even broadcasts it across the country. This year was the 78th edition.
On Saturday, there was a parade that proceeded to the open-air museum and stadium.
It was pretty interesting. It's interesting to see how each region and village's traditional costumes vary.
Česká televize recently decided on this year's entry for Eurovision. From 2 November to 8 December 2022, artists could submit their entry for 2023. There were 170 entries received and the field was narrowed down to five which were announced in January.
The rules were that solo artists had to have Czech citizenship. For group entires, the maximum number of members was six and at least one of the lead vocalists had to have Czech citizenship. This citizenship requirement was a Czech thing because there's no Eurovision rule that says a contestant must be a citizen of the country being represented. For example, Céline Dion won in 1988 competing form Switzerland even though she is Canadian.
This is the first year that the country will compete at Eurovision as Czechia instead of as Czech Republic. This is also the first time that Czech TV organised a live broadcast to determine who would be selected by audience vote. The vote was weighted as 70% for international voting and 30% by local Czech voting.
Here are the five entries that battled it out on TV.
Up third was Markéta Irglová with her song Happy. She's from Valašské Meziříčí and has lived in Ireland, the USA, and now in Iceland. She won an Academy Award in 2008 for Best Original Song, Falling Slowly, for the film Once.
Vesna performed fourth with their song My Sister's Crown. Three of the six members of the group are Czech, with a Bulgarian, a Slovak, and a Russian. Their song is about empowerment and pan-Slavic sisterhood with the lyrics in English, Czech, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian. 
The final performer was Rodan with his song Introvert Party Club. In 2021 he was nominated for Discovery of the Year 2021 and the music magazine Headliner included him amongst the 50 hopefuls of Czech music.
Česko Slovensko má talent (ČSMT) is the Czech-Slovak version of the "Got Talent" franchise that is in some +60 countries.
ČSMT first aired on 29 August 2010 and the tenth season finished airing a couple of months ago.
One of the moderators is Czech and the other is Slovak. Both Czech and Slovak are spoken by the moderators, judges, and contestants.
From what I understand, back in the days of Czechoslovakia, the evening news used to always be broadcast in both languages. The first half was in Czech and the second half was in Slovak. This was one of the ways that pretty much helped everyone to understand each other. While Czech and Slovak are pretty close, the younger generations today, in both Czechland and Slovakia, have a harder time understanding the other language. I wonder how many other shows there are out there that are broadcast in both languages.
Here's a short clip from season 8 that I found out on YouTube. The contestant plays clips from songs in several languages and holds up cards with similar sounding but incorrect lyrics. I think it's pretty funny.
Last week I received a letter from Czech Television letting me know that I need to pay a TV licence fee. I do own a television but I use it to watch Netflix, YouTube or AppleTV. I don't watch Czech TV, I don't have cable or satellite service so what gives?
Apparently every household that owns a television, whether you use it or not, is required to pay 135 Kč ($6 or €5) a month. You have the option of paying monthly, quarterly or annually.
The money goes toward funding Czech Television (Česká televize) and Czech Radio (Český rozhlas). Neither receives any government funding so the money received from licensing helps keep public broadcasting independent from political influence.
Every household is required to pay regardless of how many televisions or radios they own. Business and the self-employed have to pay a licence fee for each television and radio owned.
Apparently they got my info from my electric provider. A friend of mine in Prague received the same notification last week so I guess there's a push right now to collect. TV licensing fees aren't a thing in the USA but they are normal in Europe with each country doing its own thing. In Germany for example the monthly fee is €17,50 while there's no fee in Spain.
The letter I received did provide for the option of declaring that I don't own a television. I really don't want to get in trouble for not paying my TV fee when I'm trying to apply for citizenship. I just went online, paid the yearly fee and now I'm covered.
The Wonder Years premiered 33 years ago and depicted events from 20 years earlier. A similar show today would be set way back in 2001. I feel old.
This American TV show ran on ABC for six seasons from 1988 to 1993. It is considered by many to the one of the top 20 best shows of the 1980s.
The Czech equivalent is Vyprávěj, which translates to "Tell" and it aired on ČT1 from 2009 to 2013. I'm told that it is one of the most successful shows on Czech television. I'm currently watching series 1 online.
The show takes place in Czechoslovakia, and latter on in Czech Republic, and centres on the Dvořák family. In each episode there are actual excerpts of the news and film from the time. 
The show ran for five series and there are 106 episodes. Series one starts off in 1964 and series five ends in 2005. The box set has 34 DVDs and is around 99 hours of content. Let's see how far I get through series one considering there are no subtitles.
Eurovision 2020 is coming up in a few months and this year it will be in The Netherlands. Last year, Lake Malawi came in 11th place which is the country's second best finish. Mikolas Josef finished in 6th place in 2018 which is Czechland's best finish to date.
2020 will be Czechia's ninth shot at the Eurovision title. Česká televize had received 152 submissions to be the country's official entry. Interestingly, of the 152 entries, only 72 were from Czech musicians. Somehow the 152 was whittled down to seven. The selection process was made up of combination of an international jury panel of ten former Eurovision entrants and a public vote made on the official Eurovision Song Contest app.
Here are the results...
In 7th place is Pam Rabbit with "Get Up". Pam Rabbit was born in Armenia and came in 4th place during last year's selection process. In 2018 she was a backup vocalist for Mikolas Josef during the Eurovision finals.
CSFD.cz is the Česko-Slovenská filmová database - the Czech-Slovak film database. It's basically the IMDb for Czech and Slovak speakers. ČSFD is an Internet database of films and television shows. There is a social network aspect to it where fans contribute ratings and reviews. There are more than 845.000 films in the database.
While there is more content on IMDb, I'm starting to use ČSFD a bit more. Or at least I start off with ČSFD and use IMDb if I couldn't find what I was originally looking for. There are some films on ČSFD that are not on IMDb and vice verse.
ČSFD obviously has way more info on Czech and Slovak films and series. It gives me the chance to see the Czech language movie trailers. If it a trailer isn't in Czech then it's usually in English with Czech, or Slovak, subtitles.
While IMDb went online in 1993, ČSFD began in 2002.
Sometimes the hardest bit is simply finding the name of a movie in another language because titles aren't always a direct translation. Titles can differ due to specific cultural references or on how something may get marketed.
Taken in Czech is called 96 Hodin which translates to "96 hours".
Coming from Atlanta, where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind, I was surprised to find out that here it is known as Jih proti Severu which is "The South Against the North."
Sometimes the titles make more sense over here. For example, the 2014 film about Alan Turing was called The Imitation Game in the USA. Over here it was Kód Enigmy, "The Enigma Code" which to me made way more sense as the movie title.
The translations aren't just a Czech thing. I remember this one time that Claudia was telling me something about a movie in German called Schokolade zum Frühstück, "Chocolate for Breakfast."
I had no idea what the hell movie she was talking about. That's because in English it is known as Bridget Jones's Diary.
At least in Czech it is Deník Bridget Jonesové.
Ondřej Brzobohatý is a Czech singer, actor, composer, and TV personality. I enjoy his music so, like Kryštof, I have several of his tunes on my iPod to help me improve my listening comprehension skills.
In 2004 he was the moderator for Česko hledá SuperStar, the Czech version of the Idol series. In 2012 he hosted the Český slavík, in 2013 he danced on StarDance...když hvězdy tanči, the Czech version of Strictly Come Dancing. He 2014 he was a judge on X Factor.
Tonight is the 25th annual Český lev, Czech Lion, film awards. The award is given by the Czech Film and Television Academy (ČFTA) and it is the local equivalent of the Oscar or a BAFTA award. The first awards were in 1993.
The award categories are: Best Film, Best Documentary Feature, Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Music, Best Stage Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. |
| Josef Skupa, Spejbl and Hurvínek |
Skupa's most famous characters are Spejbl and Hurvínek which were created in 1920 and 1926 respectively. Spejbl is the foolish father and Hurvínek is his mischievous son. They also have a dog, Žeryk, who is able to bark out words. Other characters include Hurvínek's friend Mánička and her granny Mrs. Kateřina Hovorková.
Spejbl and Hurvínek have travelled to over 30 countries. Albums, television shows and movies have been released. Despite being over a century years old, the show still does a great job of showing the generation gap between parents and children.
In August 2017, a 3-D animated film called Hurvínek a kouzelné muzeum (Hurvínek and the Magic Museum) was released. Of course Tünde wanted to go see it. 
Eurovision starts tonight and the Czechs are going for it again. Gabriela Gunčíková will represent Czechland this week.
One of Tünde's favorite things is Die Biene Maja.
Bob and Bobek are two rabbits that live in a magician's hat. They are the main characters from a popular cartoon series that first appeared on Czechoslovak television in 1979.
Bob is the bigger rabbit and often takes the parental role. Bobek (bobby) is the smaller rabbit and takes the child role. They are clever and often get in and out of trouble.
Bob and Bobek were even the mascots of the 2015 World Hockey Championships.
Ladislav Pešek was a famous Czechoslovak film actor. He was born in Brno in 1906. Back when Brno was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He passed away in 1986 at the age of 79.
When he was 23 he received an offer to join the National Theatre in Prague where he performed for nearly 50 years. Between 1931 and 1984 he performed in more than 90 films and television shows. His memoirs were published in 1977. |
| Večerníček |
 |
| Sandmännchen |
It's Christmas time in the ČR which means that there are lots of Czech fairy tales on TV. One of the favorite stories shown during Christmas is the 1973 film Tří Oříšky pro Popelku, Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella. Popelka is the Czech Cinderella.
Posts
All Comments
Czech Koruna Exchange Rate
