The Hostivař Studios ( cs, Ateliéry Hostivař) are

film studios A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the productio ...

located in the Hostivař district in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

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

. 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 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 ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

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. Several major Hollywood productions have been made here, including '' Mission Impossible'', ' ...

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, 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 maximum of four genetic gra ...

'', '' Muzikantská Liduška'', '' Pantáta Bezoušek'' or ''

Turbina ''Turbine'' ( cs, Turbina) is a 1941 Czech historical drama film directed by Otakar Vávra and starring František Smolík, Lída Baarová and Vlasta Matulová. It is based on a novel by Karel Matěj Čapek-Chod. Synopsis The film takes pl ...

''. 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'', '' 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 – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed bet ...

like '' Ulice'', '' 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 the UK version in July 1990. The format was revived and updated for the BBC in February 2005 by executive producers Roddam and John ...

'' reality show.

References

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