A record number of festival venues, more than one hundred Pride events in Prague and the regions, five hours of online broadcasts daily, rainbow-lit buildings throughout the Czech Republic. The jubilee tenth edition of the Prague Pride festival will take place from 3 to 9 August and, for the first time in its history, will bring together LGBT+ people and others through the interactive online Pride Stream.

Prague Pride is literally becoming a nationwide festival that everyone will be able to enjoy either at the venues or through live streams of dozens of discussions, panel debates and lectures, whether in their living room or, for example, in the garden with friends. Truly everyone can take part in this year’s festival. And it has never been easier to bring along your friends, family and colleagues – simply anyone with whom festivalgoers feel safe and who would like to learn more about the lives of LGBT+ people.

 

 

Theme of the festival: Pride LIVE

“Prague Pride connects us LIVE”: this is the main motto of this year’s campaign and the goal of the festival itself. “We wanted to emphasise the theme of interconnection, which is very important to us. We have to get to know each other as LGBT+ people because, for example, the fact that I am a lesbian does not mean that I understand trans people. However, we don’t want to stick only with LGBT+ people, but also communicate with the people around us. The tenth Prague Pride simply has the aim of uniting the whole Czech Republic,” says festival director Hana Kulhánková. The organising team would like to attract to the programme as many people as possible from all over the country – from LGBT+ individuals and organisations, through the heterosexual public, to partners and people from institutions in the capital as well as in the regions.

The word LIVE was not chosen by accident, as a large part of the programme will be broadcast live online. It will be possible to watch the Pride Stream from festival events on Facebook and YouTube Prague Pride every day from 4:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m. The Streams will be interactive – people will be able to comment and even write questions for the discussion participants. Events will be broadcast from two venues, namely the studio of the Charles University Faculty of Social Sciences and the U Valšů Theatre at the headquarters of the ŽIVOT90 organisation. Every day, the Stream will consist of three sections, Rainbow Fairy Tales children’s programme, educational content comprising lectures and discussions with Czech and foreign guests. The intermissions between the individual broadcasts will comprise a spectrum of documentary, reportage and experimental testimonials of LGBT+ people with the title Queer Universe.

Part of the programme will even be conducted in the online environment. There will be a virtual debate of the organisers of Pride festivals from the Visegrad Four countries. “For example, we will discuss what it is like to organise Pride when it involves fearing for one’s life, such as in Poland and Hungary. We would also like to focus on how to achieve mutual understanding with the opposition, which often does not have an understanding for LGBT+ people,” explains Hana Kulhánková.

 

A programme truly for everyone

The Prague Pride festival is again collaborating with dozens of programme partners this year. The largest number of partners are non-profit organisations focusing on LGBT+ issues, from coming out, through discrimination in education and the workplace, to starting a family. This year’s programme includes picnics for asexual people and for bi and pansexual people, and discussion on the portrayal of trans characters in films and games and on intersex issues. Emphasis is placed on bringing together not only various queer groups, but also various generations. “As the director of the festival, I consider it very important that older people feel good at Pride and know that it is an event for them as well. The so-called intergenerational snack was a huge success last year, so we decided to repeat it this year,” says Hana Kulhánková.

Both the concept of the online Pride Streams and the composition of the programme were formulated during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, there will be a significant decrease in the number of foreign guests this year, though that does not detract from the diversity and attractiveness of the programme. Individual events have a broad scope in terms of both form and topics. For the first time, the festival will address the issue of domestic violence in LGBT+ couples (Domestic violence in LGBT couples – more common that you think) or an editathon focused on creating LGBT+ entries on Wikipedia (Pride Wiki Editathon). This year offers a treat for fans of literature, as there will be a discussion on Czech LGBT+ literature and the literary phenomenon Red, White and Royal Blue will be presented. Aleš Kauer will present his poetry collection happyEND and, for children from rainbow families, Instagram influencers Two Dads will read a book with the story of their own lives and more. Podcasts and talk shows are another new feature. The creators of the Brno queer podcast Kydy will release one special episode every weekday during the festival, and the newly created YouTube show V tranzu focused on transgender themes is preparing an extra festival episode.  Popular stand-up comedy will also be on offer, as the programme includes the legendary expat comedy show The Gay Agenda, as well as young Czech stand-ups with the show Don’t Call Me Kotě. An important foreign guest this year will be Tom Siara, the Polish gay and HIV activist behind the “Non-Transmissible” education campaign, which last year fought against the low degree of awareness among Poles and the stigmatisation of people living with HIV. Other foreign guests will participate in Prague Pride 2020 only virtually: the inspirational talk show Pride Voices will feature a video contribution from Andrey Jenkins, the first African-American trans woman elected to public office in the United States, and German intersex artist Inns A. Kromming will join the discussion on intersex issues. The New Stage of the National Theatre in Prague, Vila Tugendhat and the Old Town Hall in Brno, the J.K. Tyl Theatre in Plzeň, the Green Gate in Pardubice and other buildings and structures throughout the Czech Republic will be lighted in rainbow colours. 

With respect to the pandemic situation, emphasis is also being placed on enhanced hygiene measures. Therefore, some events will have a limited number of attendees according to current developments and hygiene regulations. Throughout the week, people will be able to meet outside in the open-air Pride Village on Střelecký Island, where the festival’s Opening Ceremony will take place at 6:00 p.m. on 3 August, in the Pride Sport complex at Žluté lázně and at the Pride Cinema in Kasárna Karlín, where outdoor screenings of films from the Mezipatra and One World festivals will be held. In the interest of safety, this year’s Prague Pride festival will not have the traditional parade, which will be replaced by the magnificent Rainbow Cruise on the Vltava on Saturday, 8 August. The cruise will be accompanied by Rainbow Picnics along the entire route and there will be live broadcasts from both the cruise itself and the picnics throughout the afternoon.

 

Auspices and festival partners

The festival will be held under the auspices of Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib, Senator Petr Holeček, Deputy Mayor of Prague Petr Hlubuček, mayor of City District Prague 1 Petr Hejma and Prague City Councilwoman Hana Třeštíková. For the second time, the rainbow flag will fly above City Hall on the first day of Prague Pride (this year on Monday, 3 August). 

The festival would not be possible without the support and assistance of institutions and partners from the private sector. The partners of the Prague Pride festival are Vodafone, Coca-Cola, the European Commission, Staropramen, the Embassy of the United States, Microsoft, ING Bank, Primeros, Google, Wolt, Every Can Counts, Hotel Leonardo, Hotel Duo and Arin Services. In addition to Prague City Hall, support is also provided by other Czech and international institutions: the European Commission, Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung, the Czech-German Fund for the Future, the City District of Prague 1 and the Office of the Government.

 

“We are happy to again be the general partner of the Prague Pride festival, which we see not only as a celebration of freedom, but also as an opportunity to draw attention to urgent issues. A survey from last year indicated that in the Czech Republic, every second LGBT graduate in their first job hides their sexual orientation, even though they were open during their studies. However, they are afraid of negative reactions at work,” says Jana Vychroňová, Diversity & Inclusion Manager at Vodafone Czech Republic, noting that diversity and inclusion are among the company’s core values.

“We want people to feel good in our country, regardless of their age, gender, health limitations, sexual orientation or identity. With our internal regulations, we ceaseless address areas where legislation discriminates against LGBT people, whether that involves taking time off when entering into a partnership, accompanying a partner to a doctor or paternity leave. In relation to this issue, we focus on a number of areas – from support for women in leadership positions to unique benefits for parents and disabled colleagues. We opened up the issue of domestic violence last year, and Pride Week participants will be able to attend a lecture on the Bright Sky application and prevention,”adds Jana Vychroňová.

 

Covid-19 and the festival 

It is in the interest of all of the organizers to enjoy the festival in peace and health. Prague Pride festival continuously follows all instructions of the Czech authorities regarding public rallies and recommendations related to the Covid-19 epidemic. Up-to-date information are available at the festival’s website. 

 

The press release, campaign visuals and video ad, photographs from last year’s edition are available for download HERE.

 

The Prague Pride festival programme is available at https://praguepride.cz/en/festival-home-en.

 

Tickets for the Rainbow Cruise are available for purchase on the GoOut website:

https://goout.net/en/other-events/rainbow-cruise-on-the-vltava/ybhsf/+tfcnq/

 

For more information, please contact:

Filip Milde

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00420 777 350 640