Czech weekend news in brief: November 7, 2021

The Russian-language drama 107 Mothers, a co-production between the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine, won the 31st edition of the international film festival in Cottbus on Saturday. The festival, which focuses on Central and Eastern European movies, presented about 170 films from 44 countries this year. It ends today.

In his speech at the award ceremony on Saturday, 107 Mothers director Peter Kerekes thanked "the 107 mothers from the prison number 74 in Odessa", without whom the film would not exist. The Slovak director, who received a glass statuette called the Lubina, also thanked Czech, Slovak and Ukrainian tax-payers for contributing funds that allowed him to shoot the film.

Year-on-year inflation in the Czech Republic rose to 5.7 percent in October, up sharply from 4.9 percent in September. According to economists, household items have had the largest impact on the rise, with fuel prices also contributing. Official data on October inflation will be published by the Czech Statistical Office on Wednesday, November 10.

"The catalyst for month-on-month price growth in September was housing, water, energy, and fuel," Akcenta analyst Miroslav Novák stated. "In October, transport prices continued to rise, due to both higher fuel prices and more expensive cars [...] While year-on-year electricity prices have been declining so far this year, electricity and gas prices began to make a positive contribution to year-on-year inflation in October."

Russian tennis players won the women's team competition Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Fed Cup) for the fifth time on Saturday in Prague, defeating Switzerland 2-0. In the first match, Daria Kasatkina topped Jil Teichmann 6-2, 6-4, and Liudmila Samsonova secured the Russian team's victory after she defeated Switzerland's Belinda Bencic 3-6, 6-3 and 6-4.

Russian and Spanish teams have won the former Fed Cup a total of five times each. The United States has the most victories, with 18 wins. The Czech tennis team has won the tournament eleven times, and Australians seven times.

The Czech Republic's Supreme Administrative Court has rejected all complaints surrounding the Czech October 8-9 general election. The new Chamber of Deputies can now meet without any changes at its constituent session on Monday, court election panel chair Tomáš Langášek has said.

STAN chairman Vít Rakušan said he respects the court's verdict. However, he added that will still consider whether STAN and the Czech Pirate Party will turn to the Constitutional Court in this matter, he told CTK. This year, the Supreme Administrative Court received almost three times more complaints about the elections than in the past, 210 in total, while another 22 were filed too late. However, it did not consider any to be substantiated.

The preserved remains of the last known male northern white rhinoceros on the planet, who died in March 2019, are currently being displayed at the historical building of the National Museum in Prague until the end of the year. The rhinoceros, named Sudan, will be transported to Africa in early 2022 according to the National Museum.

The northern white rhino subspecies is extinct in the wild and now threatened with complete extinction. Scientists are trying to save the subspecies using reproductive cells from Sudan and the last known living females. "Sudan became a legend during his life. At the same time, he was a symbol, memento, and hope. He was the symbol of the wildlife and environment devastation we have been witnessing in the past decades," Přemysl Rabas, director of Zoo Dvůr Králové, stated.