04/04/2016 - The event offers a comprehensive overview of what has been going on in Slovakian cinema over the past year

After last year's inaugural edition of the Slovak Film Week, a showcase of domestic production, the Slovak Film and Television Academy (SFTA) is preparing another whole week dedicated to Slovakian cinema this year. “Last year, the screenings enjoyed great attendance levels, and there was particular interest shown in the talks with the filmmakers,” says Marek Leščák, president of the SFTA, adding that he hopes the event will become a new national tradition. “Bringing the best movies together in one location has enabled viewers to see the films in relation to one another and will lead to a confrontation between various creative approaches; it will create a vision revolving around thematic strands and will sketch out a whole picture of the direction our cinema is heading in,” he adds, explaining the concept behind the showcase, which gathers the crème de la crème from among last year's fiction, documentary and animated projects. The event also serves to highlight the position of domestic film within the context of European cinema, also comparing domestic production with global trends.

Besides widely acclaimed titles such as Koza [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan Ostrochovský
film profile], Home Care [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Slávek Horák
film profile] and Eva Nová [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marko Škop
film profile], the line-up also comprises the meditative diary of a film 5 October (read the news), directed by Slovakian documentarian Martin Kollár; Peter Bebjak's The Cleaner [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Žiaran
interview: Peter Bebjak
film profile]; a fairy tale directed by Juraj Nvota, Johanna's Mystery; Alice Nellis' Seven Ravens [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; the feature debut by Rasťo Boroš, the road movie Stanko [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which revolves around a Slovakian slacker living in Italy tasked with a trafficking mission; Viktor Csudai's latest effort, Vojtech, an urban comedy about middle age; a film said to be the most expensive comedy ever made in either the Czech or the Slovak Republic, Tomáš Mašín's Wilson City [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; a biographical documentary by Alena Čermáková entitled Anton Srholec, about the titular Slovakian priest who passed away early this year and dedicated a fair share of his life to helping homeless people; Pavol Barabáš' travelogue Suri, investigating the Ethiopian tribe of the same name; and the animated features Little from the Fish Shop [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Little Man, among others.

The upcoming edition of the Slovak Film Week will merge with the The Sun in a Net ceremony, the national awards celebrating the best domestic films made in 2014 and 2015. The titles in the running include Marko Škop's Eva Nová, Ivan Ostrochovský's Koza, Jaro Vojtek's Children [+see also:
trailer
film profile], The Cleaner, Wilson City and Fair Play [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Andrea Sedlácková. The ceremony will be held on 16 April. On the same night, the revered director of the Czechoslovak New Wave Juraj Jakubisko and cinematographer Igor Luther, who has lensed films by Volker Schlöndorff and Alain-Robbe Grillet, will receive the Award for Exceptional Contribution to Slovak Cinema, and the Slovak Film Week will feature a retrospective sidebar spotlighting several films from their fruitful careers.

The Slovak Film Week runs from 11-17 April in Bratislava, and the films will have English subtitles.