The Hostivař Studios () are

film studios A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company that makes films. Today, studios are mostly financing and distribution entities. In addition, they may have their own studio facility or facilities; howev ...

located in the

Hostivař Hostivař () is a cadastral area in southern Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava Ri ...

district in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. Founded in 1934, the studios cover an area of about 20,000 square metres.

History

Businessman Karel Krečmer built a complex of bakeries and a steam mill in 1921. He sold the pastry under the name Host. The company went bankrupt in 1924 and the stake-holders sold the complex which was then rebuilt as a film studio with three sound stages, a film laboratory, a restaurant and a hotel. The first productions shot in the studio were commercials for Baťa shoes company in 1934.

Jan Antonín Baťa Jan Antonín Baťa (7 March 1898 – 23 August 1965) (also known as Jan Antonin Bata or Jan Bata, called the King of Shoes) was a Czech-Brazilian shoe manufacturer from Uherské Hradiště (southeastern Moravia), half-brother of Tomáš Baťa. ...

rented the studios in 1937 with a plan to make feature films. However, the plan was never realized, because in 1939 the World War II broke out and Baťa left the country. During the

Nazi Occupation of Czechoslovakia Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequen ...

from 1939 to 1945, the Nazis used

Barrandov Studios Barrandov Studios is a set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe. Barrandov has made several major Hollywood productions, including ''Mission: Impossible (film), ...

to make their movies, so any Czech films could only be filmed in the smaller Hostivař Studios. A Nazi controlled company Prag-film acquired the studios and merged them with Barrandov Studios in 1943. Some movies shot during the war were ''

Grandmother Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, or Grandma and Grandpa, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maxi ...

'', ''

Muzikantská Liduška ''Muzikantská Liduška'' is a 1940 Czech drama film directed by Martin Frič. Cast * Gustav Hilmar as Farmer Stanek * Marie Blazková as Stanek's wife * Jiřina Štěpničková as Liduska * Hermína Vojtová as Landlady Krejzova * Vilém Pfeif ...

'', '' Pantáta Bezoušek'' or '' Turbina''. Following the war, the studios stayed part of the Barrandov company in the nationalised Czechoslovak film industry. In 1945 a large part of the ateliers were damaged by fire, but they were rebuilt. In the post-war era films like '' Journey to the Beginning of Time'', ''

Higher Principle ''Higher Principle'' () is a Czech drama film based on the eponymous short story from the book ''Silent Barricade'' () written by Jan Drda in 1946. The movie was released in 1960 and was temporarily banned in West Germany as the "anti-German fi ...

'', '' The End of Agent W4C'' or '' Ecce homo Homolka'' were shot here. In the 21st century, the studios are used mostly to film

TV shows A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platfo ...

like ''

Ulice ''Ulice'' (meaning 'street') is a Czech soap opera produced by Nova. It is aired five times a week. The show describes the lives of the Farský, Jordán, Boháč, Nykl, Liška and Maléř families and many other people that live in Prague. Thei ...

'', '' Ordinace v růžové zahradě'', ''Comeback'', ''Velmi křehké vztahy'', ''Doktoři z Počátků'', or the Czech version of the ''

MasterChef ''MasterChef'' is a competitive cooking show television format created by Franc Roddam, which originated with MasterChef (British TV series), the British version in July 1990. The show aims to discover the culinary talent of chefs of varying sk ...

'' reality show.

References

Film studios Culture in Prague Cinema of the Czech Republic {{film-studio-stub