Brno: Lusofest 2017

Lusofest is a festival organised by students at Masaryk University’s Portuguese Faculty of Letters in Brno. The main objective of this event is to promote the culture of Portuguese-speaking countries in the capital of Moravia, in the Czech Republic.

The festival runs throughout the month of April, starting on the 10th at Cafe Mezzanine (7pm) with the inauguration of an exhibition entitled Fifty Thousand Roses for the Velvet Revolution – the Friendship of Václav Havel and Mário Soares. Jointly organised by the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Portugal and the Mário Soares Foundation, the exhibition depicts Portugal’s role in a moment of history that marked a turning point for the former Czechoslovakia.

The Portuguese Language Centre in Prague is supporting and participating in the event in the form of the Camões House Band, which will give a concert following the exhibition’s inauguration.

At 7.30pm on the 13th of April, Diário de Viagem (Travellers' Log) will begin a series of lectures on the subject of travelling through Portuguese-speaking countries.

Following that, a Portuguese pub quiz will be held on the 18th of April starting at 7pm comprising thirty-one questions about the Portuguese-speaking region. Running parallel to that will be an event called Speaking Portuguese where speakers of the language living in Brno can meet and exchange ideas.

A series of Portuguese films screened at the New York Portuguese Short Film Festival will be shown at Kino Scala on the 20th of April, starting at 9pm. Czech subtitles have been added by Portuguese Language and Literature students living in Brno.

A Portuguese DJ session is being held at the Kabinet Múz music club eight days later.

To close this special month dedicated to Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking countries, a Portuguese culinary workshop is being held on the 29th of April by Bárbara Loureiro, author of the Receitas Portuguesas para Erasmus (the Erasmus Book of Portuguese Recipes) launched this year by the publisher Ideias Fixas.

Lusofest has been taking place in Brno for many years and is already an integral part of the city’s cultural activities.