Discoveries from Slovakia World Cinema

Three backpackers head to a Slovakian city that promises to meet their hedonistic expectations, with no idea of the hell that awaits them.

Three American college students studying abroad are lured to a Slovakian hostel, and discover the grim reality behind it.

Tom (4 years old), Suzanne (8) and Derek (10) spend the weekend with their grandparents. But nothing is as usual: Grandpa seems to be elsewhere; Tom wonders where Grandma has gone, she who always tells him incredible stories; Derek is hard at work renovating the old apple tree hut. So following in the footsteps of her ancestor, Suzanne improvises herself as a storyteller to illuminate the house with imaginary and wonderful stories and try to fill the absence of Grandmother. The movie is an adaptation of three tales written by Arnost Goldflam.

Bathory is based on the legends surrounding the life and deeds of Countess Elizabeth Bathory known as the greatest murderess in the history of mankind. Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth Bathory was a modern Renaissance woman who ultimately fell victim to men’s aspirations for power and wealth.

A ballad of unequal marriage taking place between the Slovak minority in Vojvodina, Serbia.

This is the true story of Freddy and Walter – two young Slovak Jews, who were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. On 10 April 1944, after meticulous planning, they manage to escape. While the inmates they had left behind courageously stand their ground against the Nazi officers, the two men are driven on by the hope that their evidence could save lives.

Juraj, a poor yet courageous shepherd, lives in a small village where he is exploited by the ruthless castle lord, Blažej. Driven by a longing to break free from this oppressive life, he dreams of exploring the world and diligently saves money while learning to read and write with guidance from a local teacher. His ambitions take an unexpected turn when he crosses paths with Júlia, a noblewoman cursed three centuries ago by greedy relatives who coveted her title and riches. Now bound to her plight, Juraj faces a heart-wrenching dilemma: pursue his dream of freedom or shoulder the burden of aiding Júlia, a lost soul from another era who relies on him for help.

Alcohol addiction is a constant in Pepa Lubojacki’s family. In an attempt to find a sisterly-brotherly way of dealing with it, text, long-term observation, beats and AI-animated photos are combined into an unflinching, yet loving form of disclosure.

In communist Czechoslovakia in 1980, Mara dreams of leaving her village to study in the city and become a pilot. But her father, a widowed Ruthenian farmer, insists she stay and work the land. When her village faces destruction due to a new dam, their generational conflict intensifies, revealing the struggle between tradition, identity, and the desire for freedom in a context of historical change.

A character is inside a cubical room; there is a hole in the roof, which is too high to reach. But pushing on the walls distorts the room in various ways, always appearing to bring the hole closer while still leaving it tantalizingly inaccessible.

An injury and a surprise turn in her relationship bring a young dancer's life down around her.

Salzburg, Germany, 2000. The elderly Czech actress Lída Baarová tells a journalist the tumultuous story of her rise to fame in 1930s Berlin and her passionate relationship with the sinister Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich.

As Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels creates films and pictures used to prepare the Germans for Total War and the Holocaust. When the war is lost, he conceives his last staging, the most radical propaganda act still possible to him.

It’s 2041 and the gaps in social and economic inequality have left the world on the brink. A breakthrough in science has given humanity the ability to bring victims of a violent crime back to life by backing up their brain every 2 days. This allows an ambitious, young detective the opportunity to solve a case of a murdered couple when the restoration team is able to bring one of them back.

Sometimes magic will help on the path to power, sometimes to beauty, but the greatest magic is true love, which will overcome all obstacles, above intrigue and evil... Ondro is well on his way to becoming an acclaimed baker. Princess Anna also has a clear idea of ​​her life, and it is miles away from the wedding with the suitor chosen for her by her uncle Árpád. The greedy wizard Láb does not shy away from anything; a bag of gold would be suitable enough for him, so under pressure from Árpád, he casts a spell on the king himself. What will the kingdom do without a good and just ruler? Will Láb manage to fix what he has ruined with his spells?

A mysterious woman returns to her mountain village home to confront her painful past. As she tries to uncover the long-buried truth, the local villagers accuse her of witchcraft and murder.

Czechoslovakia, 1941. As the war continues, Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich arrives in Nazi-occupied Prague and establishes a regime of terror that will force freedom fighters to act. But the price to pay will be too high.

The life of a man after he experiences forgotten baby syndrome, unintentionally leaving his infant daughter in the back seat of his car.

The film captures a period in the life of figure skater Ondrej Nepela, when in 1972 he returns with a gold medal from the Winter Olympic Games in Sapporo, marking the peak of his sporting career. At home, he is greeted not only with fame but also with the realities of the communist regime. Everyone treats him like a celebrity, but the sensitive Ondrej longs above all for an escape from this uncomfortable golden cage. He wants to live freely and in harmony with who he feels he truly is. Yet at the last moment, his promised chance to leave for a professional ice revue is forbidden, and he is ordered to compete in another World Championship. Disappointed, Nepela must find new motivation and also come to terms with the tragic death of his best friend, figure skater Hana Mašková.

Just before World War 1, the fifteen-year-old poverty-stricken Anne from a small Slovak town is sent to Prague to be a maid in a wealthy family. She meets Resi, the daughter of a noble family, who was born and raised to be an adornment and a trophy – of the house, of her family, of Austria-Hungary. Anne and Resi, two girls born in the same year, but at the other ends of the social ladder, find a soulmate in each other. They become best friends, lovers and the only light in a male-dominated world.

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

A film based on the true story of a twenty year old girl who lives with her mother and her younger, parasitic partner in Bratislava’s Petržalka district. Her ideas about life are full of ideals, but reality is completely different. Out of boredom, and lacking positive motivation and family care, the young girl commits an irreversible act that ruins her life.

Ema & Death’s-Head deals with the precarious border between humanism and the protection of one’s own life in situations when one excludes the other. Marika Sándorfi is hiding a Jewish boy during the dramatic era of the First Slovak State on the Slovak-Hungarian border. Šimon Holan, the boy in hiding, has a special ability to survive thanks to dreaming and a child’s fantasy.

80-year-old Ali Ungar comes across a book by a former SS officer describing his wartime activities in Slovakia. He realises his parents were executed by him. He sets out to take revenge but finds instead his 70-year-old son, Georg, a retired teacher. Georg, who had avoided his father all his life, decides to find out more about him and offers Ali to be his interpreter.

Like the steam that silently appears and then disappears over a flowing river, the life of every human is just as fleeting, and this particularly applies in the case of artists. The transience of their fame is the main topic of this documentary, which provides a glimpse into the lives of three ageing jazzmen: trumpeter Laco Deczi, saxophonist Ľubomír Tamaškovič, and contrabass player Ján Jankeje, who fled from the Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia to the West, where their stars shone alongside those of the world’s famous musicians.

In the 1990s post-communist Slovakia, former woods worker Miki takes his chances to start doing business at a local level and climb up the ladder to become the biggest mafia boss in the country.

Martina is 18, loves dancing and goes by a nick name Shakira. Also, today she is leaving an orphanage...

The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents.

Slovakia, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. The family of the young Jewish Martin Friedmann gathers to celebrate his bar mitzvah and make a solemn promise that they will all meet again a year later around the same table; but the storms of war and anti-Semitic fanaticism will lead each of them down very different paths.

Jakub's life arrived at a dead-end. He leaves his job, and gets into conflict with his father. The trouble just grows by his relation with a married woman. Breaking out, Jakub realizes the pleasures of the countryside in the old garden of his grandfather. He finds true love with an angel, and encounters various exciting moments of his new free life. Strange visitors arrive, and he wont get back to town anymore.

Stone by stone, Imrich is building a small house for his daughter Eva almost entirely on his own. But for Eva, who is about to graduate from school, the prospect of moving into the house is about as appealing as being imprisoned in a jail she herself has helped to build. She has very different plans for her future...

Teenager Agata lives with her mother Magda, who was fired from her job. Magda decides to go into business, opens a hairdressing salon. However, thanks to a swindler and an unfortunate game of fate, she loses all the money she has invested and the roof over her head. They move to a social hostel, where 14-year-old Agata discovers a forbidden world. While Magda struggles to find a livelihood, Agáta gets involved with a gang on the estate. She tries her first cigarettes, alcohol, experiences theft on trams, violence, fear, but also liberating irresponsibility...

The story of a young woman who takes it upon herself to save her brothers and rid them of a curse which they were put under by their mother.

Miki Černák, a boy from Telgárt, became a respected boss of a mafia group. But it is not enough for Černák. He wants to dominate all of Slovakia. Become the boss of all bosses. However, the way to the top is lined with traitors and corpses. And Černák underestimated the strongest mafia that ever ruled Slovakia - politicians and their secret service.

A grittily realistic tale of prostitution at an Eastern European border town

Hurikán rushes out to save his favourite beer stand from closure by fetching a new keg to impress the bartender he has a crush on. In a wild Prague district, he faces robbers, cops, and his own thirst.

Criminal thriller about traffickers and smugglers from Ukrainian border. The feature film about the borders and the life on their edge.

An aged farmer moves to the urban city for the first time in his life. He befriends a paper delivery boy in the neighborhood and their connection changes the course of both their lives and the boy's family.

The story of the film The Candidate takes place during two months of campaigning before a non-specific presidential election in one specific country. The author of the diary entries has no idea for whom he is recording the eavesdropping and enthusiasm for an interesting job in which he follows a bishop, a crazy owner of an advertising agency and a bland presidential candidate with the eloquent name Peter Potôň and an even sweeter-sounding family history, soon give way to disgust and confusion. His diary becomes a file with transcripts of conversations, information about characters and characters, emails, scraps from psychiatric medical records and pictures, which he scribbles at first out of boredom, later because words and rational explanations are no longer enough. The candidate is a political farce, a sad-funny depiction of what happened, is happening, and could very easily happen in this small country.

90% of everything we consume is shipped to us by boat. Seablindness explores the interstitial space of ports where land meets the sea and capital circulates. On a journey along the varied edges, we intercept a radio call from stranded seafarers. This documentary poem explores ecological anxiety. It is not, however, about those who feel it, but for them

Lena is a 17-year-old girl from a middle-class family who is experiencing her first love: secret night adventures and magical morning walks along the Danube. However, her dream world is shattered when she is raped. Withdrawing, she ultimately attempts to slit her wrists. Her family, helpless, entrusts her to a psychiatric institute.

Janette is terminally ill and wants to die in a dignified way but this is not permitted under British law. She refuses to wait for death in unbearable pain so she opts for a physician-assisted suicide in Switzerland. Before departing on the final journey she has to explain her intention to the family members and close friends.

A nostalgic story about the birth of a movie star and a sad love. A Hollywood dream - the desire of thousands of girls to shine in the movie sky, but also hope and disappointment, the toll of success, the endless waiting for the right one to discover their beauty and talent. This is also the story of Jenny, who found her benefactor in Jacob. This is an intellectual full of doubts about the meaning of his own life and a sad comforter of the lonely, unable to realize his own artistic ambitions except in the fate of others. Alongside him, Jenny comes to know the glitter and glory of "stardom," but also the haunting burden of a debt that is difficult to repay.

Tomas, a 14-year-old boy lives beneath the castle of the powerful Lord Balador. The boy is able to communicate with animals, and he tries to obtain the royal falcon – a symbol of freedom and faith. He also falls in love with Balador's daughter Formina, a girl who is to be married off against her will.

In love with a girl that smells of oranges while in a complicated relationship with his father, Darek is gentle, strong and devoted to his little sister and their herd of horses. Darek's world is a story about the joy and pain of growing up in the isolated yet beautiful Lusatian Mountains. Here, horses are not expensive specimens of racing stables but beings you should care for and love. Not even that is enough in life though, as Darek finds out nearing the Summer's end, closing his childhood definitely. However, just like any ending, this is a start of something new.

After a failed engagement, heartbroken art critic Kseniia finds herself embroiled in intrigue related to a Gauguin – but it might lead her to true love.

New husband Adam reluctantly takes a job with state security in a totalitarian country, thus becoming a secret police agent. This "contract with the devil" helps secure a flat for the happy couple, as well as a prosperous future. However, he soon finds out that he too is under surveillance.

In the wild steppes of southern Ukraine, a young nature researcher named Yura is looking for an endangered species of groundhog but instead witnesses a crime. Eager to expose the truth, Yura takes his photo evidence to the local newspaper's editorial office. However, he quickly realizes that nobody there cares about pursuing justice. While a big war is looming over the horizon, Yura's naive worldview is splintering in a storm of fake news, rigged political elections, and mysterious cult rituals. On his quest, the hero is about to find out who he really is-an endangered species of a good man or just a loser?

A film about the uncertainties faced by a man in post-Communist Slovakia, his relationship with a teenage son and English teacher girlfriend who's soon to return home to England.

Made refugees by the war in Ukraine, Olga and her granddaughter Milana travel to a summer camp in the Austrian Alps to test the limits of their own bravery, and to strengthen their growing bond.

11-year-old Rea has recently moved to a distant planet in an outer-space colony where she discovers a mysterious animal cub while her father works in a factory that builds robotic creatures. With the help of her new friend Andy, she must protect the real cub from the factory’s ruthless owner, who intends to turn it into a robotic prototype.

The young couple's search for the secret of their ancestors. Its roots are in the time when the worst crimes of the last century took place, connected with corruption, boundless greed, ruthlessness, with borderline manifestations of inhumanity, but also with an unlimited desire for power. Dramatic reflection of memory and time in a story from the present in the confrontation of the Czechoslovak context during the Slovak State (1939/1945).

Eva would do anything to regain the love of the one she hurt the most - her son. She is a recovered alcoholic but decades ago she was a famous actress.

The film shows how we often complicate our own lives and overlook what truly matters. Two friends, Veronika and Klára, return home to a series of family and social gatherings - three weddings and one funeral - that turn their worlds upside down and lead them to discover love, happiness, and their place in life.

Martina and her three friends, all high school professors, embark on an experiment to maintain a constant low level of intoxication throughout the day. Based on the Oscar winning movie "Another Round" (2020)

The loose sequel to the film "Pásla kone na betóne" returns to the familiar heroes after some time. The communist dictatorship is no longer raging and capitalism is penetrating even the remote corners of Slovakia. As it turns out, however, people don't change much over time, and their joys and worries are still the same. The tragicomic story depicts the vicissitudes of Johanna's new relationship with brewery manager Janko Kvašný, the unhappy marriage of her daughter Paulina and life in the new social conditions in an eastern Slovak village.

Human rights activist and political prisoner Mustafa, who became known after his 303-days hunger strike in prison, is exiled to Siberia to work at an oxygen station. Three people across the country were headed towards him, each with very different goals.