The Barrandov Film Studios

Fourteen months. That's how long it took to turn this rocky plateau overlooking the Vltava River into a film empire. On November 28, 1931, brothers Miloš and Václav Havel broke ground right where you're standing. By January 1933, cameras were rolling. The plan was to build everything at once: soundstages, luxury villas for actors, even a garden restaurant with sweeping views of the city below. They wanted Europe's Hollywood, and they wanted it fast. The name came from a dead Frenchman. Joachim Barrande was a geologist who spent years on this plateau in the 1800s, discovering trilobites embedded in the rock. He never made movies, but the Havels liked the name. It stuck. By the mid 1930s, the studios had 300 employees and were cranking out 80 films a year. It was the most advanced studio in Central Europe. MGM and Paramount opened distribution offices just to work with this place. Then history got complicated. The Nazis seized it in 1939. The Communists took over in 1948. But films kept rolling. Two movies shot here won Oscars: The Shop on Main Street and Closely Watched Trains. Later came Mission Impossible, Casino Royale, Chronicles of Narnia. Over 5,000 films have been made on this spot since 1931. The soundstages you see before you? Three of them were built during World War II. They're still shooting there.