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SCREEN legend Sir Sean Connery has been honoured with an award for his lifetime contribution to world cinema - but it is the choice of location for his latest film which is hogging the spotlight.

The 71-year-old Scottish actor was too ill with flu to receive his award in person and instead filmed a message from his hotel which was played at the closing gala ceremony of the 37th International Film Festival at Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.

In it, he said how disappointed he was that he was unable to fulfil his obligations "but my doctors have told me to stay in bed and not to travel".

Sir Sean is currently in Prague shooting his next movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a fantasy action blockbuster set in Britain in 1900, and experts are already tipping it to be one of next year’s biggest box office hits. Connery will star with two other British actors - Jason Flemyng, of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fame and Stuart Townsend, who played Jez in Shooting Fish.

Described by Hollywood sources as "a period X-Men movie", the £55 million film follows the adventures of a team of superhero characters drawn from 19th century literary classics.

The streets of Prague will double up for the streets of Victorian London in a movie which has stirred up fears within cinematic circles that London, the more obvious choice considering the film’s Victorian theme and setting, is losing its edge over other Europeans capitals as a cinematic location.

It is Prague’s mix of unspoilt locations, highly-skilled technicians and low prices that have lured more than 60 international productions there since 1989, earning the Czech capital the moniker of Hollywood on the Vltava, after the river that runs through it.

This year, Rob Cohen’s movie XXX, starring Samuel L Jackson, a British co-production of Dr Zhivago with Sam Neill, and the US mini-series Children of Dune, are booked into the city’s studios. Prague hosted the filming of another mini-series, Joan of Arc, in 1999. In recent years, there has been an explosion of film-making in the countries of the former communist bloc, with Prague the most popular city location.

Most big US studios have shot in Prague more than once. In 2000, Heather Graham and Heath Ledger even began a brief romance in Prague while filming From Hell and A Knight’s Tale respectively. International film-makers spend £143 million a year in the city, and it is thought that with ever-improving facilities and the fact that costs of production are up to 50 per cent lower than in London, Prague may be about to oust the UK capital from the number one European location slot.

For just $US7,000 a morning, the Charles Bridge can be hired, while a medieval castle costs about twice that.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is being filmed at the legendary Barrandov Studios in Prague. Recent productions there have included the soon-to-be released The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon and Brian Cox; Blade 2 starring Wesley Snipes; Black Sheep with Anthony Hopkins and The Mists of Avalon with Anjelica Huston.

Martin Fischer, a Czech film fan, is delighted that Connery is attending the film festival in the Czech spa resort of Karlovy Vary during his stay.

He said: "He is one of my favourite actors and it will be a great honour to see him. I am also pleased that he will be staying on in the Czech Republic to make his new film at Barrandov."

The 11 September attacks and a lengthy dispute last year between Equity, the British actors’ union, and Pact, the body that represents producers, about residual payments to actors for repeat showings of their films on TV, video and DVD, have lessened the appeal of the London film production market.

Last year, Pinewood spent around £35 million buying its chief rival, Shepperton, the studio behind classics such as Laurence Olivier’s Richard III. It was reckoned that the combined studios would not have to turn away work because of a lack of capacity.

But Michael Grade, the 59-year-old chairman of Pinewood Limited, and former head of BBC1 and Channel 4, has rejected any suggestion that the UK is losing ground to central Europe as a place for Hollywood studios to film. He said: "When you go into Prague or Berlin, it looks a lot cheaper on paper because the costs per hour are cheaper and the construction costs are much cheaper, but in the end it takes you longer to shoot because they haven't got the infrastructure we have."

With the exceptions of festivals in Edinburgh, Venice and Cannes, the Karlovy Vary festival - established in 1946 - is one of the oldest film events in the world. In the Sixties and Seventies it was regarded as "the bridge between East and West".

City of golden roofs basking again in rich cultural glory

WITH its stunning and varied architecture, the capital of the Czech Republic is known as the city of the golden roofs.

Prague was founded in 973AD, the capital of the ancient state of Bohemia, but has been occupied by many foreign invaders through the centuries. The French, German, Austrian and Swedish invaders have each left their mark and the Gothic, Baroque and Romanesque architecture is world-renowned.

The country gained its independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the First World War, but then followed decades of Nazi and Soviet suppression.

It is only since the Velvet Revolution of 1989, when the communist regime was overthrown, that the country, then Czechoslovakia, has freed itself from this oppression and is again basking in the glory of its own culture.

During the reign of Charles IV (1346-78), Prague acquired its fine Gothic face and landmarks, including the Charles University, Charles Bridge and St Vitus Cathedral.

In the second half of the 16th century it experienced great prosperity under Emperor Rudolf II and was made the seat of the Hapsburg Empire.

Rudolf II established great collections of art and renowned artists and scholars were invited to his court.

The Czech Republic’s communist past evokes an impoverished history, but in fact Prague, which escaped bombing in the Second World War, has always been affluent. The average wage is about $378 a month.

Unemployment in the city is about 3.5 per cent, compared with 9 per cent throughout the rest of the Czech Republic. Inflation is about 4 per cent. There are about 40,000 young American people in the city.