The House voted best Slovak film of past two years

by Viktor Palak

18/04/2012 - Debut film The House [trailer] by Zuzana Liova (interview) is the best Slovak film of the past two years according to the Slovak Film And TV Academy. Liova accepted the awards for best film, best screenplay (which she wrote), while all the acting awards also went to her film.

Among the recipients were Czech actor and theatre director Miroslav Krobot (who also starred in Bela Tarr's The Man from London [trailer]) and actress Tatjana Medvecka, who has recently won the Czech Lion for the same role. The House – a family drama that premiered at the Berlinale in 2011 – is a Slovak-Czech coproduction.

Martin Sulik´s Gypsy – a film that failed to ignite the box office after its premiere at the competition of Karlovy Vary IFF last year, where it won the Special Jury Prize – also left with six awards, one of which went to Sulik himself for directing. The experienced filmmaker was also awarded for best documentary – the Golden Sixties project deals with the internationally acclaimed films of the aforementioned decade in Czechoslovakia.

Despite being nominated eight times, Apricot Island by Peter Bebjak did not score in the end. The nominees were selected from a total of eight feature films and 25 documentaries, which premiered in 2010 and 2011.

Academy President Emilia Vasaryova, actress, handed out awards for Special contribution to Slovak cinema to veteran scriptwriter Eduard Grecner and cinematographer Tibor Biath, whose son accepted the statuette on his behalf. The awards, which are named after the 1962 film The Sun in a Net, are handed out every two years.