The Zlínský zámek charitable trust was registered by the Regional Court in Brno on November 2, 2012. Its principal subject of business is the promotion of the historical and cultural heritage of the building of the Zlín castle, the management, operation and use of the buildings of the Zlín castle and adjacent areas, dissemination and popularization of cultural values in the field of art, history of the Zlín region and preservation of cultural monuments. Coordination of activities aimed at the reconstruction, revitalization and further development of the Zlín castle, cooperation and communication between entrepreneurial entities and educational institutions in Zlín, cooperation with state and local governments as well as with natural and legal persons related to the use of the Zlín castle as one of the centres of social and cultural life in Zlín.
In 1947, Hanzelka and Zikmund explained the “5” project to the automotive company Tatra. The company, impressed by the plan and seizing the opportunity to promote its vehicles, decided to sponsor the trip, and gave them a silver Tatra 87. After three months of gaining experience with the car at the Tatra factory in Kopřivnice, the duo set out on their first trip. It was a continuous three-and-a-half-year voyage through Africa and Latin America, from April 1947 to November 1950 and covering 44 countries and 111,000 kilometers.
Having traveled from the north coast of Africa to Mexico, the duo returned home, but their country had greatly changed during their absence. The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état, scored by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia with the support of the Soviet Union, had put a Stalinist government in control, beginning one of the bleakest eras of the country’s history. Initially, the government treated Hanzelka and Zikmund well; though most Czechs and Slovaks were barred from going abroad, the duo were allowed to publish the fruits of their travels because their descriptions were not seen as politically threatening. They were able to launch a second trip, running five and a half years continuously from 1959 to 1964, taking them to Eastern Europe, Asia, and various Pacific islands with two prototypes of the Tatra 805 truck. On this trip, the duo reported on Indonesia, Irian Jaya, Japan, and the Soviet Union.
Throughout their travels, both captured still photographs and films as well as writing articles. In addition, they wrote a weekly radio program about their travels for Czechoslovak Radio, which became one of the most popular on the station; since they lacked the means to broadcast from the locations, they simply wrote the scripts and sent them back to Czechoslovakia, where their voices were recreated by two actors. Their works of travel literature include eleven full-length books full of photographs and descriptions of the economic and socio-political situations of the places they visited, four picture books, three children’s books, and 150 short travel documentary films. Their books were also serialized in the newspaper Mladá fronta.
In Czechoslovakia, where the tight control of the Communist government made it impossible for most Czechs and Slovaks to travel out of the country, the works of Hanzelka and Zikmund offered a rare chance for vicarious escape into exotic climes. They became the best-selling writers of twentieth-century Eastern Europe; their books sold 6,525,000 copies in the Soviet Bloc and were translated into eleven languages. They became a national institution in the Czech lands, and were equally popular in Soviet Russia, where the premier Nikita Khrushchev demanded of his aides that the three volumes of Hanzelka and Zikmund’s Africa: Dreams and Reality be on his bedside table no matter where he went. Hanzelka and Zikmund visited 83 countries in total.
Tomáš Baťa established the organization in Zlín on 24 August 1894 with 800 Austrian gulden, some $320, inherited from his mother. His brother Antonín Baťa and sister Anna were partners in the startup firm T. & A. Bata Shoe Company. Though the organization was newly established, the family had a long history of shoemaking, spanning eight generations and over three hundred years. This heritage helped boost the popularity of his new firm very quickly. In 1904 Baťa worked on an assembly line in the United States and brought his acquaintance with the method back to Zlín. With modern production and long distance retailing, Baťa modernized the shoemaking industry and the company surged ahead in production and profits right from its nascent years.
Eventually, Tomáš Baťa obtained sole control over the company in 1908 after his brother Antonín Baťa died from tuberculosis. After Antonin’s death, Tomáš brought into the company two of his younger brothers, Jan and Bohuš into the business. World War I created a booming demand for military shoes, and the company quickly became one of the major contemporary footwear brands. During the interwar period Tomas Baťa again visited the New World to observe progress at the River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Upon his return the company began to look towards decentralizing operations. Baťa also exhibited his business acumen, with his initiatives towards producing low-cost shoes for the general public, whose purchasing power had been significantly reduced in the aftermath of the war. Factories and companies were set up in other countries including Poland, Yugoslavia, India, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the United States. These factories were made self-sufficient and autonomous in their design, production and distribution strategies, in a move to focus them towards catering to the local population. By the early 1930s, under Tomas Bata’s leadership the Baťa enterprise and Czechoslovakia were the world’s leading footwear exporters.
The Czech round of European Rally Championship is under way! It takes the crews through challenging tarmac roads around the Moravian industrial town of Zlín, with tens of thousands of spectators coming to one of the most popular rally events in the Czech Republic.
Day 1 (Friday, 24thAugust 2018)
Shakedown
On Friday afternoon, the crews faced the oldest stretch of the Zlín rally, from Komárov to Pohořelice. As expected, FABIA R5 crews dominated the show, with six ŠKODA cars in the top 9 positions. Jan Kopecký, the ŠKODA Motorsport works driver and the reigning Czech Rally Champion, who already secured this year’s title on the previous rally of the calendar, finished second with the time of 2:50.073. He was beaten by Nikolay Gryazin on FABIA R5 entered by the Sports Racing Technologies team, who posted a time of 2:50.026. In the third position, Fabian Kreim of ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland finished the 1-2-3 finish for FABIA R5s.
Stage 1
On the Friday evening, the rally started for real with the spectators’ favourite, the downtown stage in Zlín. The rainy weather made for a challenging drive, with many crews suffering punctures and other problems. This time, Jan Kopecký and Pavel Dresler proved their dominance on the Czech rally circuit and won the stage with the time of 7:07.2. Behind them, another six FABIA R5 crews finished in the top ten.
Day 2 (Friday, 25thAugust 2018)
Stages 2 – 5 (Morning)
More rain during the night caused the first stages of Saturday to be wet and treacherous, but Jan Kopecký started the day in a great way, setting the best time in the SS1. One stage later, though, he got unlucky and suffered a puncture, which cost him almost half a minute and dropped him from the lead to the 4thposition. One week ago, similar situation didn’t stop Kopecký and his co-driver Pavel Dresler from winning Rally Deutschland and this time, Kopecký started to fight back in the same impressive way. In the SS5, the last stage of the morning run, he set a stunning fastest time which moved him up to second position. Before the midday service break in Otrokovice, Kopecký is just 7.4 seconds behind the leading driver Alexey Lukyanuk on Ford.
Stages 6 – 9 (Afternoon)
The afternoon loop of Barum Czech Rally Zlín featured repetition of the morning’s four stages. Once again, the weather was unpredictable. The conditions ranged from rainshowers to drying parts in SS9, the longest stage of the day close to the service park.
In Stage 6, Jan Kopecký’s race to catch up with the leading driver Alexey Lukyanuk was once again delayed by punctures. This time, he lost front and rear left tyres of his ŠKODA FABIA R5. The Czech Champion explained this mishap: “There was a big rock which we didn’t expect to be there. Maybe it was dug out by some other car”.
With the loss of around 15 seconds, Jan Kopecký and his co-driver Pavel Dresler dropped from second to third place. After this setback, he confessed: “This time it seems not to be our year at Barum Czech Rally Zlín. With no more spare wheels left, I cannot push any more.”
Even so, Kopecký set another two fastest time in the two remaining stages of the Saturday leg and moved back to the second place, 16.8 seconds behind leading Lukyanuk on Fiesta R5.
Day 3 (Sunday, 26thAugust 2018)
Stages 10 – 15
Sunday brought constant rain in Zlín and its surroundings, making for challenging drive on wet roads. “Honestly, the punctures were our mistake, but we are still in the fight. I have really a huge support from all the fans, so it’s really great to be here”, said Kopecký in the morning before the start of Sunday’s leg. During the six stages of the day, he proceeded to prove his words. His faultless drive with controlled risks and a clever choice of tyres, cheered by ten thousand enthusiastic Czech fans, took him back to the first position in front of Alexey Lukyanuk and to well deserved victory.
Behind Kopecký, seven other FABIA R5 crews finished in the top 10, including Fabian Kreim of ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland. This 25-year-old German driver ended up in 6thplace overall, but what’s more important, he scored second place in ERC’s U28 category, behind the winner Nikolay Gryazin (also on FABIA R5). This means he is still leading the category’s overall standings.
Final Results Barum Czech Rally Zlín (MČR)
Kopecký/Dresler (CZE/CZE), ŠKODA FABIA R5, 2:07:47.2 h
Lukyanuk/Arnautov, (RUS/RUS), Ford Fiesta R5, +7.5 sec.
Sordo/del Barrio (ESP/ESP), Hyundai R5, +53.6 sec.
Jakeš/Machu (CZE/CZE), ŠKODA FABIA R5, +53.9 min.
Gryazin/Fedorov (LVA/RUS), ŠKODA FABIA R5, +1:13.2 min.
Kreim/Christian (DEU/DEU), ŠKODA FABIA R5, +1:58.2 min.
The oldest and largest international film festival for children and youth, the Zlín Film Festival, will be celebrating the centenary of Czechoslovakia via several film sections and supporting programmes. “We will screen a collection of Czech and Slovak children’s films and fairy tales put together by actors and filmmakers, accompanied by some of their genuine memories. Many of them will be bringing their favourite film to the festival,” said artistic director Markéta Pášmová. However, this won’t be the only anniversary being celebrated, as the National Film Archive has prepared a special thematic block dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the first Czech films. (The article continues below – Commercial information)
The programmers have prepared a line-up of 300 films from 55 countries, including underrepresented countries such as Swaziland, the Faroe Islands, Singapore, Venezuela and Chile. Bragi Þór Hinriksson’s The Falcons was chosen as the opening film, and will be enjoying its international premiere, while Juraj Lehotský’s film Nina [+], now entering local distribution, will be screened for an adult audience during the opening ceremony.
As was the case at previous editions, the gathering is trying to streamline its programme. The five competition sections will offer a diverse selection of films for children and youth in various formats – 33 features, 62 short animated films and 74 short student films – such as Supa Modo [+] by Likarion Wainaina, Rosie & Moussa by Dorothée Van den Berghe, The Witch Hunters [+] by Raško Miljković, Rock My Heart by Hanno Olderdissen, Backstage [+] by Andrea Sedláčková, The Best of All Worlds [+] by Adrian Goiginger, Team Hurricane [+] by Annika Berg and We [+] by Rene Eller. The novelty of the 58th edition is the incorporation of the documentary sidebar into the competition section. “The ECFA Doc Award will reward the best of the seven European documentaries for young audiences, and the ZFF is working with the European Children’s Film Association (ECFA) to organise this competition,” says Pášmová.
As usual, a sidebar will be dedicated to one particular country, and this year it will be Austria, which will have 15 of its feature films for children and teenagers screened. The programmers have also decided to introduce a brand-new section, American Teen, focused on American independent films. Alongside the showcase, the Zlín Film Festival hosts several events for film professionals, such as a lecture on virtual reality, project pitching sessions, a workshop on developing a project, and other activities.
The 58th edition of the Zlín Film Festival runs from 25 May–3 June in Zlín, the Czech Republic. The full programme is available here.
Zlín 