With this year's Oscar ceremony behind us, the time is ripe to do two things: first, to congratulate the winners (we loved Argo, and we thoroughly enjoyed Ms Lawrence's Mr Waltz's performances in Silver Linings Playbook and Django Unchained (we have not seen Lincoln and Les Miserables), and, second, to recollect the Czech and Czechoslovak movies who that won the Best Foreign Language Film category in the past. The Czech cinematography has a very long tradition, booming especially in the 1960s with the filmmakers of the "New Wave" (when the Poles want to say that something is confusing, they say "it's like a Czech movie"). All in all, despite the Iron Curtain and all, three Czech(oslovak) movies managed to win the Oscar Best Foreign Language Film award. All these films can be bought on DVDs here in Prague, with English subtitles.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is not Cannes. And that's probably a good thing… Here's a last-minute tip for anyone who's in the Czech Republic in the next few days, loves movies and wants to see something really local and something really cool - the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. A festival now headed by the powerful and charismatic duo of Eva Zaoralova (who picks the movies for the festival) and Jiri Bartoska (a famous actor who does the fundraising, I guess), the Karlovy Vary Festival ("KVIFF") is one of the few Category-A film festivals (just like this in Cannes, Berlin or Venice) and the largest in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the festival quite differs from others of its kind.

Whenever Zuzi and I travel abroad, we always try to see a movie. You can do that in Prague, too - most of the movies are subtitled, not dubbed. In addition, smaller art film cinemas are really fun and offer a truly local experience!