Czech Radio production Republika Zahradníiíiíiíiíi wins Prix Italia 2025
The radio production Republika Zahradníiíiíiíiíi won the Prix Italia 2025 international festival in the Music category. The radio composition was created for Czech Radio Vltava's Radiocustica project and premiered on November 27, 2024, as part of the PremEdice Radioateliér series. This year's Prix Italia focused on interpreting contemporary reality with the aim of creating space for dialogue between different cultures, languages, and media.
"Every such nomination and international recognition is very valuable because it is a public assessment of the investment of time. For me, it is recognition of time-transcending borders, and in this case, I appreciate it twice as much because the entire project is dedicated to listening and the causality of sound, especially in relation to one's surroundings and oneself, which I consider a very important topic," adds Ladislav Železný, dramaturge of the Music creative group, under whose leadership PremEdice Radioateliér is created and the piece's co-creator. He personally presented the experimental project at the festival in Naples.
Republika Zahradníiíiíiíi is based on artistic research by Loré Lixenberg (UK) and the Ferst Dadler collective (IT, RU, CZ), which took place in 2023–24 in the gardens of Troja Castle and the Franciscan Garden in Prague. The project is based on the idea of an independent republic in which citizenship is granted by the mere fact of existence and human and non-human beings have equal rights and are interconnected. At the moment of its radio broadcast, this republic of gardens redefined its territory in the radio space.
"This project is truly innovative because it reflects on the perception of sound and our environment in an unconventional way, redefining the space of radio in a highly creative manner. This highly musical radio piece makes listening itself the most important theme. Listening as a journey of discovery into the sounds of humans and nature, as a democratic experience, listening even as a micro-political act. We highly appreciate that Czech Radio has commissioned this major musical production. We believe that making contemporary music and art possible is one of the most enjoyable and important tasks of public broadcasting," appreciated the Jury in its reasoning.
"We still believe that radio holds a unique power and responsibility. It creates a space where voices meet without hierarchy, where imagination replaces walls, and where care can resonate across distances. Through this work, we reclaim that potential — to imagine radio as an act of solidarity, empathy, and attention, capable of challenging the paralysis of fragmented individualism and the erosion of collective action, freedom, and nowadays democracy," adds one of the project's creators, musician Elia Moretti.
The Prix Italia festival was founded by Italian radio station RAI in Capri in 1948, making it one of the oldest audiovisual festivals and still one of the most prestigious showcases of radio and television productions. It is held annually in various historic cities in Italy. Over the past fifteen years, the festival has been held in Venice, Milan, Palermo, Bologna, Rome, and Naples, which hosted this year's edition. Prix Italia is held under the patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.