Discoveries from Slovakia World Cinema

Legendary Jamaican reggae band Third World live and direct at the 12th annual Uprising Festival in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Overcoming fear will not be easy. It will be difficult.

A recording of a theatre performance by the Radošino Naive Theatre.

This adaptation of the classic 18th century novel depicts the carefree life of a noble society that has lost its historical relevance and perspective. The young nobleman de Meilcour narrates his entry into social life and the uncertainties he experiences. He searches for pure love, but does not find it in a corrupt world. He encounters vice, coldness, cynicism and pretense.

Adam is a twelve-year-old boy living in the Slovak countryside. He is a local lumberjack and also has various odd jobs. Basically, he likes to do everything. Although life is not easy, he can see beauty everywhere.

A selection of the best scenes and songs from the theatre's rich history, using STV archive material. Stanislav Štepka, an inseparable part of the naive scene and its "father", will accompany us through the 45-year history of the theatre and its characters from the village of Radošina.

Every week, five trucks leave Slovakia for Ukraine with humanitarian aid, which, thanks to Father Vitali, is distributed to places that are not covered by the media. Because there are now thousands of places like Bucha in Ukraine. Depaul's main goal is to care for the homeless, but now many Ukrainians have become homeless because their homes have been burned down by rockets. The tables have turned. Now the homeless are taking care of people who have been left on the streets. They know how the system works.

A film about Andy Warhol's extended family, whom he never met, from rural Slovakia. The film follows the filmmakers as they travel through eastern Slovakia to interview Warhol's surviving relatives, ethnic-Ruthenians living near the Polish border in Miková, and to visit the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art in Medzilaborce. The museum is shown to be in a poor state, with the museum director and staff openly soliciting donations from the viewer and giving out the museum's bank account details.

A drug-addicted punk, Kwicka, lives with his companion and son in a dilapidated sublet. His alternative way of life collides with harsh reality when he receives a letter from social services warning that his child will be taken away. Kwicka tries to make things right, but his impulsive behaviour turns his rescue efforts into a free fall.

Slovak musicologist Agata Schindlerová, now settled in Dresden, has spent years mapping out the forgotten destinies of Jewish musicians whose lives were irrevocably marked by the advance of nazism. Scenes from the lives of several of them are portrayed in the film In Silence (ballet dancer Alice Flachová, pianist and conductor Karol Ebert, composer, conductor and director of the Dresden Theatre Arthur Chitz, pianist Edith Kraus, and the vocal ensemble Comedian Harmonists), which draws a sharp contrast between the protagonists’ carefree existence working and making music during the pre-war era and the subsequent severe upheaval in their lives brought on by the proliferation of nazism.

At the end of the world, where time has stopped and even the shadows of ancestors remain faithful to their homes, there is a village where stylized absurdity mixes with the subconscious of the nation and where reality walks hand in hand with dreams and the afterlife.

'White on White' is director Viera Cákanyová's video diary that she kept while staying at the Polish Antarctic station, where in 2017 she shot the film 'FREM' (2019), whose main character was an artificial neural network. During her stay, the author chats with various artificial intelligences, leading conversations that touch on the nature of film, art, and the meaning of life while also revealing a way of thinking that's free from humanity and from an emotionality that forces deep introspection. Footage from her routine, everyday life at the station contrasts with lyrical images of the immaculate Antarctic nature, which the author complements with her own commentary and thoughts provoked by the loneliness of the ice-covered landscape.

The story of three boys living in Bratislava. Michal, Simon and Robo are living their everyday troubles, love and family affairs. Only after unpleasant events, they will realize they are starting to form family together.

Documentary film about glassmaker Palo Macho (*1965).

A documentary on Jan Slovak, a 55-year-old welder, who fell in love with acting. His desire began, when he got the lead role in a theatrical adaptation of the worst movie of all time, Plan 9 From Outer Space by Ed Wood Jr. The passion for theater became his destiny.

In one fairytale land, people lived contentedly for many years, they had their usual joys and worries, they enjoyed the surrounding nature, the majestic forest. In addition to wild animals, birds and butterflies, fairies, goblins, dwarves and other magical and more or less charming creatures, invisible to the human eye, lived here. The rulers of the forest gave the strigóns Bendegúz and Sebela a magical stone that had the power to fulfill human wishes. The Strigôn made a bet whether people would abuse the power of the magic stone or use it for good deeds. Accompanied by the butler Vendelín and sister Júlia, the young count Henrich arrives at the estate, whose task is to improve the property and learn how to farm. Henrich, who has huge debts and a lot of negative character traits, has a different intention. He decides to cut down the forest. However, not only the inhabitants of the forest stand in his way, but also the miller Matúš and his sister, Countess Júlia.

Up there, above the clouds, one can feel a mysterious alliance with the universe.

A fairy-tale comedy about lazy Mato and the knowledge that the bossboys lead him to. Mata's mother's cottage leaks when it rains and its door hangs crookedly on one nail, even though a healthy young man lives there. Mato would rather not eat than move his mouth or even his hands. To every request, to every question he answers: "I didn't invent the work, let those who invented it do it!". But Mato changes his mind and Jesus changes his mind...

Adam Oĺha's father, a well-known Slovak educator and filmmaker, decided to leave his wife and six children and start anew after years of living together. Adam takes his place and starts recording the family's peripeteia. As the eldest of the siblings and the last man in the family, he examines his father's old picture records, compares them with the present and tries to find out what led to this radical change.

Two adolescent sons and their parents. A family whose members have known each other for so long that their mutual affection can feel like cabin fever. They all have dreams they want the others to validate, perhaps even more than their need to fulfill those dreams.

Three siblings, Martin (87) from Monaco, Theo (85) from Canada and Alessa (82) from the USA narrate the fascinating true-life story of their father L.E. Hudec (1893-1958), a famous architect in Shanghai. For the first time Alessa visits Slovakia the birthplace of her father. Together with her brother Theo, they decide to visit China after 63 years - the country of their childhood and youth. This inspired documentary not only explores the many exciting details of the life of L.E. Hudec, father of Asian high-rises, but also serves as an authentic testimony of life of Europeans in Colonial Shanghai before The People's Republic of China was formed. It presents the never-before-seen 16mm home-movies that were shot between 1927-1938 by Ladislav Hudec himself.

This satirical comedy gives a grotesque portrayal of social absurdities during the 1905 revolution in Russia. Somewhere in a remote province, the governor and the revolutionaries switch roles in order to pursue their selfish interests and conceal some serious "butter on their heads". Love affairs, fake assassination, lying as a way of existence, abuse of position, corruption and intrigue of the powerful - does this remind you of anything? If so, the resemblance is purely intentional.

At 43, Inge Jung thinks she has it all. A great career in a multinational company, friends, unerring judgement and self-confidence. Until betrayal strikes and Inge loses everything she's loved about her life in one moment. She loses her job, her car and her apartment after an unexpected layoff, but it's only the first slap of fate that sets off a cruel roller coaster of knowledge. After exhausting all options, she decides to move to central Slovakia to an old inheritance house in a secluded area near a small town. In her new surroundings, she receives a kindly upbringing that melts her stony heart and hard head. In addition, an attractive neighbour, Martin, who has long since left a life as a graphic designer in London, enters her life...

A documentary nature film about little-known but all the more precious natural wonders of Slovakia.

The story of a married couple which breaks apart after the death of their only child. Andrej and Eva, husband and wife, are inevitably getting to the point of the imaginary crossroad. There is nothing keeping Eva in the marriage so she deeply desires to leave. Andrej is becoming self-aware of his aggressive nature and tries to change the situation of their marriage.

The documentary tribute to the solitary director Elo Havetta (1938-1975), the author of only two feature films (Celebration in the Botanical Garden and Wild Lilies), which belong to the peaks of Slovak cinema. In their time, they brought playfulness and spontaneity, which the authors of the documentary follow up with a happening in which they search for his legacy on the way to the director's grave.

After World War II, the Krnáč family moved from central Slovakia to western Ukraine. After the controversial annexation of that region to the Soviet Union, they found themselves trapped with no way out, as Nikita Khrushchev's decree forced them to settle in the village of Belgarka in the Kazakh steppe, where they spent more than forty years.

What can happen during an ordinary school visit to the museum. The hero - a little boy, experiences great adventures thanks to his antics, but even those don't change him.

A fairy tale in a classic setting, with usual fairy tale creatures.

The story of ordinary people who won their fight for a healthy environment in a battle with big oil. Nobody believed it, and yet it happened. Ordinary people from three small villages in the east of Slovakia banded together and managed to defy the interests of a wealthy multinational company.

A short fairy tale about troubles of soul and pure alcohol narrated by Stano Dančiak.