Culture 2022: we are mainly represented abroad by musicians
People from the industry even admitted that the music market was overrun and fans couldn’t keep up or didn’t have enough money for tickets to all the events.
The Covid years, on the other hand, benefited literature. People had more time and peace to read and writers to write. Kateřina Tučková made great use of it. Her previous novel The Žítkov Goddess deservedly made her a star of contemporary Czech literature. He confirmed his success with his new novel Bílá voda, dedicated to the life of religious sisters during the communist era. But it is not a boring historical novel, quite the opposite. In the form of narration, Tučková follows on from Žítkov’s goddesses. Here we can find several time levels, an exciting unfolding of the plot, an emphasis on female protagonists. Tučková traditionally collects recognition from both readers and literary critics.
The somewhat stagnant waters of Czech cinematography were significantly disturbed this year by the film Banger directed by Adam Sedlák. A film about young rappers will certainly not appeal to all age groups and they will not be endlessly repeating Pelíšky, however, critics praise the film as a kind of supernatural phenomenon. In the Czech Republic, someone has finally made a quality film outside the traditional (and already somewhat stereotyped) themes of the recent past. Banger is a film that is about the young and for the young and is internationally understandable.
However, Czech cinematography cannot boast of international successes. Czech films are only exceptionally accepted into the competitions of the biggest festivals, and perhaps we can only dream. Fortunately, there are other cultural areas where the situation is much better.
Pianist Ivo Kahánek won the most awards (BBC Music Awards and others) and nominations (Opus Klassik 2022) this year for his complete addition to Dvořák’s piano work. Conductor Jakub Hrůša also achieved significant success with a recording of Bruckner’s 4th Symphony and soprano Kateřina Kněžíková (BBC Music Awards for the album Phidylé).
Czech culture enters the prestigious international context in the field of music as well as in other ways. This year, all three of the largest Czech cities embarked on intensive preparations for the construction of new concert halls designed by famous foreign architects. In Prague it is the studio of the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, for Ostrava it was designed by the American Steven Hall, in Brno it is to be built according to the project of the Polish-Japanese team Kaczor-Toyota.
