Discoveries from Slovakia World Cinema

A film essay, a personal story, a tribute to the mothers and families of premature babies, at-risk newborns and the vulnerable disadvantaged.

Emil Skamene has written more than 250 scientific publications, won dozens of distinguished awards, and was even on the verge of winning the Nobel Prize. He is the founder of the Institute for Clinical Research at McGill University in Montreal, a member of the Czech Learned Society, and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. Not so long ago, he discovered that he was someone completely different – he had devoted his whole life to unlocking the secrets of genes, and yet he had been unaware of his own identity for decades. His life was a history that changed the whole of Europe and the world. His story is full of unbelievable and completely absurd situations that can only happen in real life.

A comedy about young people, living in the biggest housing estate in Bratislava, who are looking for a piece of their happiness. Inseparable friends Peter and Mišo fight together, try to figure out how to impress babies and share "life wisdom". Peter likes Michal's younger sister Veronika. However, she has eyes for someone else. Coincidentally, Zoltán, a robbed Hungarian tourist, enters their lives. They try to help him as best they can. However, the situation gets complicated and several unexpected twists and turns happen in their lives...

A melodramatic story of a young woman Kristina, who briefly manages to survive the illusion of a rich happy life, but cannot bear to return to the sad reality.

The aim of the project is to familiarise children with current risks in rail transport. An educational short film.

The first animated short about Tom Thumb by Viktor Kubal

Finding connections between christmas traditional dish and sentenced prisoners leads to closer look on questions about the meaning of freedom and identity. Faces that cannot be recognized but their voice still remains. Is debt towards society redeemable with sorrow?

The story of Mr. Nicholas, a lonely old pensioner, begins the moment he decides to make children's dreams come true. As a temporary worker, he works at the post office, where letters addressed to St Nicholas have been piling up since the end of November. The post office workers put them in an old banana box and nobody notices them anymore. After all, who has time for such stupidity. It is only Nicholas Frost, in whose name the persons to whom the letters are addressed are associated, who thinks that this year he will make at least a few children in the house and on the street where he lives happy. And so he buys sweets and, with the help of a young student he has taken in at his place, starts delivering sweet parcels...

A man wants to sit alone on a park bench, but it's always occupied. His increasingly ridiculous attempts to drive others away lead to a chain of comic situations.

Where once there was, there was once a kingdom, and there lived a good king whose wife died and left behind two princesses. And there lived a wicked foster mother who thought that when the queen died, she would take her place. But after a while the king brought a new wife, good and noble, who loved his two children very much. And when the twins were born together, happiness and joy reigned in the kingdom. But this the wicked foster-mother could not bear to see, so she schemed against the queen wherever she could…

In its portraits of three monks, Erik Praus’s documentary captures the inimitable spiritual ambiance and mysticism of Pochayiv Lavra, an Eastern Orthodox monastery on a hill above the town of Pochayiv in western Ukraine’s Ternopil Oblast. Fathers Gabriel, Vicilentius and Nazarij have left their past traumas behind, finding peace, balance and their lives’ meaning at the monastery. Their stories are allegories of spiritualization and purification from human passions against the backdrop of the turbulent Ukrainian reality. Motivated by material need and spiritual desperation, the faithful flock to this place of pilgrimage in search of new strength and forgiveness. The film respectfully observes the monks’ everyday lives, while also noticing the opulent splendour of their surroundings. The road to faith is not a privilege of the chosen few; it is open to all who hear its “calling”.

Film essay on fundamental issues of human existence: dignity, Death Penalty, conscience, euthanasia, freedom, abortion, suffering, suicide.

A story based on two short stories by the Slovak classic Martin Kukučín, which in a humorous and kindly tone brings closer the nature of our people.

Eduard Grečner. Film director, dramaturge, publicist and poet. A talented fi lmmaker with precise artistic goals which, due to circumstances and the times, he was not always able to realise. Refl ections on the ideological and aesthetic starting points he consecutively followed during his creative career, [as well as] on the meaning and mission of art and the principles that art should never abandon. [It is] about reality limiting the freedom of artistic expression, confl icts with power and the consequences that Eduard Grečner – a human being and an artist – decided to face without ever compromising his own views and conscience, because the truth is all there is.

Dušan Hanák's final film: a bitter documentary about the history of Communism in Czechoslovakia.

From his truck, rising online star Štefan Pongo streams his political rants and creates social media movements that go viral, in support of Romani people across Europe.

TV dramatisation of a novella by Austrian writer L. Ingrisch.

Slovakia, World War II. Two musicians join partisans to free their country from Nazi occupation and witness the horrors committed by Hitler's soldiers.

Slovakia is a hockey nation. The land of Stanley Cup winners and world champions. However, the stellar generation is over and there are no successors. The home World Cup 2019 brought new hope. The matches of the Slovak national team were given to Košice for the first time, and for the East it was a unique chance to ignite passion in the new generation of fans. The film maps four months before the start of the championships in the lives of two people. World champion from 2002 Ladislav Nagy, who has pursued a career because of the World Cup and wants to say goodbye to it at home in Košice. And Jonáš Pahuli, a beginning hockey player, for whom the championship is a unique chance to see big hockey live and, thanks to that, to kick their own career.

In 2024, during an artistic residency at Periférne Centrá (Dúbravica, Slovakia), Cristian Estrella filmed the folkumentary „Medzi dolinami, medzi vŕški, po stopách budúceho zvuku Slovenska“ while producing the album "The Future Sound of Slovakia Vol.1" by Mira Tus Manos. But every film leaves scenes out. What doesn't fit due to time, rhythm, or because the main story needs to go elsewhere. "Medzi scénami, medzi hlasmi" is exactly those outtakes: already edited material that no one had seen, divided into two parts —SIDE A and SIDE B— where artists from Argentina, England, France, Catalonia, Amsterdam, New Zealand, and Slovakia speak not only about the project but also about their own artistic practices, personal stories, and internal maps.

The documentary film is not a search for the survived truth of the inhabitants of the Ruthenian village Ladomírová. It captures their subjective memories, often frozen in time and in everyday life. Only strong impressions of sadness, joy, suffering, which reflect the great history of the 20th century. There is no truth about the past, it is only the human mind that actually makes morytates - bloody enlightening stories and legends.

Not so long ago, untamed nature stretched across Europe. Today, only a few such places remain. One of them is the mysterious Silent Valley in the High Tatras in Slovakia. Remote gorges and enchanting forests are home to about forty bears, who live here freely and without any conflict with humans. Two young filmmakers were inspired by these magnificent creatures, known as the guardians of the wilderness, and captured their lives on film. In doing so, they reveal the fleeting world of untamed wilderness, in which humans are mere observers.

Once upon a starry night, a small boy with the head full of fantasies witnesses dreamlike circus performances. Dazed by endless chain of glittering attractions he realizes that the price for a ticket to the fantastic circus tent is too high and gate between reality and dream is closing.

The police find a burnt body in an abandoned mansion in the middle of the Radvaň housing estate in Banská Bystrica. Student Jana has a feeling that it is her ex, whom she has not been able to reach after the holidays. Moreover, she sees strange shadows in the window of the mansion at night. Her roommate, film student Elena, goes to the mansion with Kamil and a camera to investigate further. Strange noises are heard in the mansion, and for inexplicable reasons something falls next to them. This convinces them to investigate the mansion more seriously. Jana and four roommates from the mansion, equipped with cameras and walkie-talkies, occupy the mansion for the night in order to focus on special camera phenomena. Little do they know that what they will face in the next few hours will be beyond their understanding and their own existence. The situation gets out of control and it seems that the only evidence of the events of that evening is found on the camera recordings.

Only the best of the best can abseil into its depths of Trou de Fer, but even that doesn't guarantee they will ever manage to return. That's up to nature to decide.

Spend the last evening of 2025 with comedian Simona First and her most Christmassy stand-up special ever, which will get you in the right mood! Eye twitches, streams of sweat running down your back in stores, and a festive climax in the form of a gallbladder attack. But don't despair, we have the cure for you! An exclusive evening full of themed jokes about how harsh the reality of Christmas can sometimes be and how we all wish it could be. We'll tell the truth about Santa Claus, scary stories about unfulfilled wishes, crowded shopping malls, and consumer loans that are gone in a second.

The film tells a thrilling, humorous and emotional story of a couple of young people who are brought together by chance on a pilgrimage through the city and the Danube countryside. A young convict on the run from prison is accidentally crossed by a young girl whom he kidnaps. However, the girl develops a special relationship with her captor, gradually transforming him from a hostage into a fellow prisoner. Nor has she experienced much good in her short life. Both of them want to escape. Somewhere better...

Jano is an old-fashioned tradesman. However, a new idea by politicians to introduce an old-age tax pulls him out of his comfort zone.

The average European has never been as responsible for the devastation of tropical rainforests as he is today. What causes it and can we prevent it? Michal Gálik's documentary Green Desert, which takes us to the tropical island of Borneo, will not only provide us with the answer to these questions, but will also tell us the startling secret that the palm oil industry hides. The film Green Desert gives a real-life account of the problems caused by oil palm cultivation in Borneo. The documentary is not just a story about palm oil, it is also a story about global responsibility and how we, as consumers, have enormous power in our hands when our purchasing decisions can affect what happens on the other side of the planet. The viewer gets the opportunity to delve deeper into the issue through real stories and interviews with local people and experts.

A documentary on the "Slovak Solzhenitsyn" Rudolf Dobiáš (*1934), political prisoner during the Communist era.

Television film with Radošino Naive Theatre and its guests.

A death reunites three old friends whose paths have diverged over the years: one has a teaching job in Mexico, another lives a lower-middle-class life, and the third is financially ruined. Their girlfriends, who join them later, tolerate their remarks and wise cracks for a while, but eventually, each has had enough.

This is the story of Zibaa Karimi, a 30-year old Afghan filmmaker and Government employee, facing the most dangerous 40 hours of her life. Zibaa is a woman on the run. The Taliban have taken over her country and Zibaa must take the most difficult choice: staying and facing potential death or leaving. But fleeing means separating herself forever from her fiancé Samir.

The documentary film about a boy raised by a 70-year-old woman was filmed over ten years and is an extraordinary statement about a deep human attitude.