Compact archive February 5, 2007

One World 2007 International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will take place in Prague for the nine times. This year it will be held from 28th February to 8th March 2007. Like every year, it is held under the auspices of Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic.

One World was awarded the UNESCO Honourable Mention this January. The festival will show more than 120 documentaries from almost 40 countries of the world. The opening ceremony starts on 28th February in Lucerna Cinema (Vodickova 36), which is also the centre of the festival, and Svetozor (Vodickova 41).

One World focuses on the issue of human rights and through films it tries to demonstrate the values necessary for a free and democratic society. More information is available here.

Prague’s Sazka Arena will host the World’s Leading Dance Event – Sensation White. For the first time in the Czech Republic, Prague will be one of the cities to experience the Sensation White World Tour.

All participants are required to wear white clothes, both the top and the bottom. Only shoes can have different colours. Small prints and logos are allowed. Minimum age is 18 years, which will be strictly checked.

The 40,000 tickets for Sensation White 2006 edition were sold out in six hours. Tickets for the Prague event will be on sale from 6th February (on internet from 7th February 8:00 until 31st May). Tickets cost 790 CZK until 28th February 2007, 1090 CZK until 30th April 2007 and 1290 from 1st May 2007.

For orders from abroad you can write to info@sazkaticket.cz. Payment is possible by banking transfer, the tickets will be sent by post. For more information about the event click here.

Probably everybody knows Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is very likely that Walk of Fame will appear in Prague as well. Prague may be the first city in post-communist countries to have the Walk of Fame.

The author of the idea is director and cameraman Oliver Malina. The main problem now is to get enough money for the project and choose the right place. What will be the main difference between the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Prague’s one? The handprints will be made in glass as Czech crystal is very famous.

The supporters of the project have already the handprints of Claudie Cardinale, Oscar director Claude Lelouch, cameraman Miroslav Ondricek and recently also of the stars and authors of the film Goya’s Ghost (e.g. the director Milos Forman).

Although the city centre of Prague is not so large and is mostly created by narrow streets, the number of hotels there is instantly growing. There are even more hotels (320) than streets (286) in the centre of Prague.

Prague has even more hotels than Vienna. Prague centre was designed for 1,3 million people, however, it is visited by more than 4 million tourists a year. About 8 thousand tourists stay in hotels in the centre of Prague every day. That makes 1/4 of Prague’s citizens in the centre.

According to the expert in tourism, Tomio Okamura, tourists mainly stay in five star hotels. Prague is the 6th most popular place in Europe. Tourism in Prague not only brings money to the state budget but also employ every 12th Prague citizen. The start of the tourist season is expected at Eastern this year.

Those who have ever travelled to Prague by car and were stuck in a traffic jam will not be surprised that the number of cars in Prague comparing to the number of inhabitants is the highest in the whole country.

According to the statistics made by the Automotive Industry Association, there is one car for 1,94 people, which means that almost every other Prague inhabitant has a car. For example in the northern Moravia one car is “shared” by three people. The average in the Czech Republic is 2,5 people per one car.

Also cars in Prague are the newest. The average age of the cars is 12,95 years, while the average age of all cars registered in the Czech Republic is 13,87. Two fifth of all the cars are less then 5 years old.