Yes, the festival is coming very very soon. We've just received very good news that some of the local foundations recognized how great we are and decided to support us.

Thanks to "Nadační fond Františka Topiče" and "Český literární fond". We can thus pay our debt, and starting to make new ones :-)

We are also happy to find friendly fellowship-workers in Czech Plzen, and also the place to make it there, former railway station (called "Moving Station"). We can imagine that this was the place from where the immigrants used to leave. Really, large part of them was from around Plzen.

The festival's main day is 9th of June. Because it's dual festival, and we are two authors, each of us will be in one of the Pilsens. But hopefully we'll meet somewhere in space.

One of us will come to Pilsen, Chicago, on the 3rd of June, to escape Mr. Bush's invasion. Guess who's gonna be it.

Call for contributions

Looking for the contributions to our Pilsen to Pilsen / Plzeň do Plzně festival.
It will consist of lectures, screenings, discussions, performances.
It will take place in Pilsen, Chicago and simultaneously in Plzeň, Czech Republic. 8 - 10 June 2007.

Hledáme příspěvky pro náš festival Pilsen to Pilsen / Plzeň do Plzně.
Jeho součástí budou přednášky, promítání, diskuse, performance.
Odehraje se v chicagské Pilsen a simultánně v české Plzni. 8. - 10. června 2007.

1. "There is no place like home" video screenings
The slightly ironical title suggests that of course there can be various places which can become home. We are looking for moving images about the transformations of (not only) Chicago and Centre European neighborhoods, travelogues, urban study videos, diaries, documentaries, whatever; also documents or other moving images on these and similar subjects: deja vu, feelings in a family way somewhere you don't belong, floating ideas of home/community, patriotism inside out.

2. Also looking for old documents, amateur films, photos, books, diaries, etc. from "Bohemian era" of Pilsen, people who have some experiences they want to share which we can publish on our website or just read/hear/watch.
We will be in Chicago between 26th of February - 13th of March this year. If someone wanted to meet us, excellent!

3. Participants for internet interconnecting the two Pilsens on two continents
- help us invent ways how to interchange ideas, photos, sounds, objects, communicate with the B/bohemian ghosts, making simmultaneous performances, etc. etc.

Pilsen Spectres Intro

This blog is kind of a platform for our documentary project "It's fun to be Bohemian" dealing with the history, transformation and present state of Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago.
After the web page is established, it will be the place of communication (hopefully) of ideas, asking questions, making comments, swearing, bomb throwing, mushroom cooking, etc. (does blogspace already enable this?).

So what is this project about? It's about ghosts, dreaming, longing for a place where you aren't but would like to be, feelings of deja vu, paradoxes of patriotism in a perished community (patriotism inside out, the only one we like). And about this Pilsen village in Chicago which used to be, once upon a time, the largest Czech (and Slavic, of course, Kenneth) neighborhood in all America. The peak of immigration took place in 1907 which is exactly one hundred years from now! Nowadays, it is really hard to find some Czechs or Bohemians. But there are yet still some bohemians there, fortunately.

Yes, we've been making videodocumentary about this Chicago Pilsen. We call it Plzeň (it is pronounced and written a little bit different, yes, believe me, Ovidio). I started doing it when I was living there on the 19th Street in one disintegrating appartment in the most beautiful house in Pilsen with thousands kinds of Mexican peppers on the roof. I was there since September 2005 till July 2006. Michal visited me in December and again in June-July. Making a movie in/about Pilsen was originally his idea. And we both are coming back this February (yes, Jose, I promised December, but I really couldn't make it, perdona me, cabron). I have some things there to handle:

1) my yellow bike which you guys promised to send me. oh, that last-night-promises....
2) we forgot to shoot that storks and European-style-meadows on otherwise-totally-Mexican-style-murals.
3) visit newly open "Bohemian cafe". What a name!
4) say hallo to all the neighbors from the 19th Street and around (by the way, you still owe me 15 bucks, Eddie!)
5) prove that Los Checos no son muertos, no y no y no, Rene. Kind of "Los Checos Back to Pilsen" idea.