what now?

Cultural Events for the week:



One World Film Festival: A Human Rights Film Festival in Prague for a week or two. We saw two films, "From Russia with Hate" and "Nazi pop twins". "From Russia with Hate" explored the growing neo-nazi movement currently in Russia, of which I shamefully admit my ignorance. A complete new type of nationalism is emerging; one that contributes to the hatred of immigrants. Stemming from this is a tremendous trend of xenophobia, which is producing a more radical and violent form of hatred. The most absurd part of the movie was that they interviewed a member of Parliament who was an advocate for this brutality and obliterataion of immigrants! I'm pretty sure you can actually watch the film on this website, for those interested (it's short, no worries): http://current.com/items/84906361_from_russia_with_hate

"Nazi pop twins" is a film about the American teenage twins who are in the band Prussian Blue. They are famous mainly because of their white nationalist song lyrics and their support for neo-nazism. The film was an a way an act of resistance again racism. First, the girls were made out to be victims of their mother's manipulation. It was really great to see that despite the sheltered life that their mother forced them to live, the twins still were able to see the flaws in their mother's beliefs. Also, because of the mother's radical beliefs, a group of people began to resist the family's beliefs. It made me start thinking about how you really can't have existence without comparison. In order for to have successful resistance, you need to have something for the resisters to resist.

Movement Theatre Performance: "A Stage for New Theatre" at Alfred Vedvore; Johanna and I decided to venture to the outskirts of the city, to a small theatre which has a hidden, windy entrance. We were the only non-Czech speaking people in the theatre of about 15 people. I felt like it was a true experience of Czech modern art. The performance explores the world of colors using minimalist movement and live music merged with interactive video. It was definitely heady; but, very unique and well-done. The use of technology was not pretentious and deceptful like the black light theatre. Rather it was honest and tastefully done. I was so impressed with the manipulation of perspective.


Kafka Museum: Field trip number 4 or 5 for my Kafka class. This one at least seemed appropriate though. I had such high expectations for this museum since they put Kafka on such a pedastal in this country, but to be honest, I was not impressed at all. I felt that they were trying to make the physical aesthetics of the museum itself compensate for the lack of interesting content. There was one quote that I liked though: "Literature is most potent when it disjoints the powerful fictions which govern men's lives. A powerful fiction is a discourse which time has converted into unquestionable truth, whose fantastic origin has been forgotten (...) Kafka's fiction reveals the hallucinatory nature of what we call reality."


Citizen Havel (Obcan Havel): A documentary film that closely follows the life of the Czech Republic's first president, Vaclav Havel. What a guy, let me just say. Compulsive about his appearance, the story of Vaclav's life is humorous and entertaining and the audience is given a sneak peak into every aspect of his life. The film made like the president seem like a real person. I could never imagine a film being produced like this on a US president. Way too controversial. Although, Bill Clinton and Bush both made some guest appearances in the film.


Laundry: Okay, so maybe this isn't a cultural event, but it's also an event that I haven't done in way too long. At this point, the process just seems to excruciating. I'm getting desperate though so I hope I break down soon.

Rachel: Rachel is Prague this weekend! Whenever visitors come it just gives us a greater excuse to make sure we have a fun night. We tried out some new places last night, returned to some of our favorites. All of which were stellar, especially N11.

A weekend in Praha:






Good times. Good culture.