20/06/2005

“A true film about true people”. That’s how a critic described Martin Sulik’s tragic comedy The City of the Sun or Working Class Heroes (“Slunecni stat aneb hrdinove delnicky tridy”), which has been chosen in this year’s competition of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival's official selection.

The "true" story-line apart this is also a true Czecho-slovak production effort. The 43-year-old director, a Slovak himself, has worked a lot in the Czech Republic and co-produced “The City of the Sun” with Czech TV (the public broadcaster). The film was financed by both the Fund for the Support of Czech Cinema and the Slovak Ministry of Culture and it stars equally Czech and Slovak actors.
The main characters are four factory workers in a mixed Czech-Slovak community in the Northern Czech city of Ostrava who are laid off by their employer. Refusing to join the dole queues they raise money to buy a truck that can help them start a new entrepreneurial career. But then the truck is stolen… The event affects not only their professional but also their personal lives and their friendship… “In the last decade things around us have changed so fast that people have difficulty orientating in their new environment…This is a film about their discomfort” comments Sulik on his film in which he also co-wrote the script.

The City of the Sun officially premiered in Ostrava on April 19 and was theatrically released in Czech Republic and Slovakia by Cinemart and Continental Film respectively the following day. Two weeks later Sulik walked away with the top prize from the recent Finale Plzen Festival where his film was also screened. But it seems the win there has not helped Sulik’s film much at the box office – the 17,000 that have seen the film in the seven weeks so far are considered a drop in the ocean compared to the 300,000 admissions that Filip Renc’s Novel for women (“Roman pro zeny”) has had at the same time.