An international television festival boasting a long history and unique content. A meeting place for leading artists from all corners of the world. An event where audiences meet their favourite stars. A space for cooperation, inspiration and fun. That is Golden Prague, a festival whose diverse content has been a magnet for art lovers for fifty-six years.
Golden Prague is a unique international cultural event. Along with Prix Italia and Rose d’Or, it ranks among the oldest television festivals in Europe. Regularly staged by Czech Television in the beautiful environment of old Prague, in recent years it has been held at the New Stage of the National Theatre. Since its opening year, Golden Prague has been attended by dozens of globally renowned directors, choreographers and artists, including H. Burton, P. Weigl, B. Monsaingeon, B. Large, Ch. Bruce B. Gavin, N. Duato, H. Hulscher, J. Kylián, M. Ek, Ch. Nupen, A. Preljocaj, J. Neumeier, D. Klimentová, or J. and O. Bubeníček.
History and unique content
The Prague television festival was founded in 1964, but its evolution since then has been complicated, switching from a festival of all television production to a drama and music competition to a festival focusing solely on music and dance. Golden Prague survived the “crisis years” of 1968 and 1969, the period of communist normalisation, the break-up of Czechoslovakia, the transformation of Czechoslovak Television into a public-service broadcaster and television’s dramatic shift as a medium since the start of the new millennium. All that time it stayed true to its values and developed into an important cultural event featuring an accompanying programme with something for the whole family to enjoy.
A meeting place
For years Golden Prague’s unique feature was that it brought together television creators and executives from various countries with different political systems; over time, these were joined by their counterparts from Asia and Africa, whose output was otherwise essentially unknown in Europe. In the past twenty years the festival has taken on an irreplaceable role as the only major festival of music, dance and theatre programmes.
An event and platform
Today Golden Prague is a four-day cultural event that showcases a wide range of television programmes focusing on music, dance and theatre as well as both Czech and international films, presenting them through competitions, screenings, video libraries and industry meetings. There are three categories of competition programmes, which are selected primarily on the basis of artistic quality:
• documentaries about music, dance and theatre
• recordings of performances
• recordings of music programmes
The winners in each category receive a Czech Crystal award. The jury, which is drawn from international experts and changes every year, also hands out special awards for outstanding artistic achievement and, of course, the grand prize – the Grand Prix Golden Prague.
This year’s festival starts on 25 September 2019. Come and experience it with us!
