Martin Šulík

What is “Slovakia”? How to explain the notion of “Slovakia” of the past 20 years to an unknown stranger, a visitor from another planet? What is the genetic makeup or the software for “Slovakia”? How to use it? How does it change? Slovakia 2.0 is a film about twenty years of independent Slovakia as seen from the perspective of ten film directors. It is composed of ten 10-minute films of different genres ranging from drama, through animation and documentaries, to experimental film. The ten recognised film directors who offer an answer to what is Slovakia include a wide range of generations, views and genres, namely Juraj Herz, Martin Šulík, Peter Kerekes, Zuzana Liová, Mišo Suchý, Ondrej Rudavský, Iveta Grófová, Peter Krištúfek, Viera Čákanyová, and Miro Jelok.

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For 14-year-old Adam, the world of his poor Romany village has only two joys: boxing and Julka, a friend his same age. But after the violent death of his father, the boy experiences life’s harsher side: his mother remarries and his stepfather demands obedience without seeking to deserve Adam’s respect. Gradually everything the boy was attached to starts to fall apart around him, and if his dead father hadn’t visited him he wouldn’t even know which path to take. The inexperience of youth, loneliness, and impulsiveness prevent him from using reason and cool consideration to face the obstacles in his way, and he even sometimes provokes those who stand by him. And thus he finds himself in a situation for which there is only one solution.

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Two-part documentary about the Czechoslovak "New Wave" in the '60s, including interviews with directors, actors, and others involved in the industry at the time.

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Television series Golden Sixties examines new insights into Czech and Slovak cinema of the 1960s and the role of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Each episode focuses on a different filmmaker.

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A tribute to Martin Slivka, one of the most important personalities of Slovak cinematography and culture. He was the creator of Slovak documentary ethnographic film, director, screenwriter, dramaturgist, film theoretician, pedagogue, author and ethnograph, but mainly – exceptional person. This documentary is not only a remembrance of maestro Slivka through words of his close friends and colleagues, but also an attempt to slightly uncover the secret of his rich life and work.

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Four friends, Karel, Milan, Tomáš, and Vinco, lose their jobs in Ostrava’s working-class districts and, with their livelihoods gone, struggle to redefine themselves. They launch various business ventures but lack experience, leading to repeated failures. Pressure mounts on their friendships and private lives as tensions flare. Through setbacks and mutual support, they embark on a journey of self-discovery, learning resilience, solidarity, and the true meaning of identity and camaraderie in a changing world.

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Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

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A Czech director wrestles with problems personal and political during the Prague spring of 1968.

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Ten short unrelated stories that move chronologically through Slovakia's twentieth-century history as seen from the perspective of life in small towns and villages.

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A four-story omnibus depicting different Czech slices-of-life from the titular city.

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In Slovakia, the sixteen year-old Terezka is discharged from her school with a letter to her mother. Along her surrealistic journey to find her mother, Terezka entwines reality and fantasy and meets a man that is hired to burn clothes; a woman buried on the ground; a young bride that is marrying the forty and something year-old widow of his brother to support her family as a tradition in their village; her younger brother that is intern in a special school; a decadent TV comedian and his wife; a powerful mobster in the kitchen of a restaurant; one lover of her mother in her former address; and finally her promiscuous mother that advises her to travel through the world.

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Jakub's life arrived at a dead-end. He leaves his job, and gets into conflict with his father. The trouble just grows by his relation with a married woman. Breaking out, Jakub realizes the pleasures of the countryside in the old garden of his grandfather. He finds true love with an angel, and encounters various exciting moments of his new free life. Strange visitors arrive, and he wont get back to town anymore.

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A film about the uncertainties faced by a man in post-Communist Slovakia, his relationship with a teenage son and English teacher girlfriend who's soon to return home to England.

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A wonderful dark tale of coming of age in a country in transformation - then Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) in 1990s. Against the backdrop of a regime change and general crisis of basic values, a young man is finding his way into adult life. Playing a part in a love (hate?) triangle he does not fully understand until the conclusion, he desperately tries to make sense of the unpredictable behavior of the other two main characters which is linked to the secrets lurking in their past. All this while he is not sure about his own role in a world where yesterday's truths mean nothing today. Brilliant actors in a brilliant film that even gives you a glimpse of hope at the end.

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A Grandfather recounts his life under communist rule, from apprentice miner to prisoner to pensioner.

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A television production based on Bozena Slančíková-Timrava's short stories about social and moral conditions in a Slovak village in the 1930s.

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Michal and Juraj, two students of a theological seminary in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, must decide if they'll choose the easier way of collaboration, or if they'll subject themselves to the surveillance of the secret police.

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Slovak director Marek Kuboš has not shot a film in 13 years. His first film ever – a student exercise at film school – was a self-portrait. The circle is closed, the source of creativity has seemingly dried up. All that is left to do in the last self-portrait is to clean up after oneself, to recapitulate one’s successes and failures, and to bid farewell to one’s protagonists. This introspective meta-documentary is not so much a study of a creative crisis as it is a self-therapeutic process and an attempt at offering a comprehensive profile of the filmmaker at a time of unstable certainties. Appearing in the role of Kuboš’s consultants are essentially all leading Slovak documentary filmmakers.

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Documentary about Stefan Uher's film.

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The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents.

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A four-story omnibus depicting different Czech slices-of-life from the titular city.

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War takes its cruel toll, which everyone must pay. It hits a small Slovak village especially hard, where the struggle for a bare life becomes a test of human character. For two impoverished friends, Jakub and Maja, struggling through poverty is more than difficult. Jakub delivers sour milk from somewhere on his cart to the entire village and lives in a dilapidated house with his sister Tereza, whose caregiver and guide through life is the experienced woman Mara, who provides herself with money from seduced soldiers. Maja, on the other hand, is a foundling and homeless man who does whatever he can to survive the next day. The only consolation for the two inseparable friends are the circulating tales of a kind of promised land, where there is no poverty or hunger, and where they could both go. Only this vision, this idea alone keeps the two of them and the rest of the village on their feet, and gives them hope for a better tomorrow.

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An old woman dreams her last dream in the house where she has lived all her life, but now she has to leave it. Divided into five separate, internally coherent parts, the story recapitulates her life while remaining a universal final recapitulation of each individual's life. Its wit is primarily based on the charm of its specific verbal expression with original slang expressions.

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Biographical film about the work of the young Klement Gottwald. The story depicts his stay in Banská Bystrica, where he edited the Slovak communist press and helped organise the communist revolutionary movement.

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80-year-old Ali Ungar comes across a book by a former SS officer describing his wartime activities in Slovakia. He realises his parents were executed by him. He sets out to take revenge but finds instead his 70-year-old son, Georg, a retired teacher. Georg, who had avoided his father all his life, decides to find out more about him and offers Ali to be his interpreter.

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What is “Slovakia”? How to explain the notion of “Slovakia” of the past 20 years to an unknown stranger, a visitor from another planet? What is the genetic makeup or the software for “Slovakia”? How to use it? How does it change? Slovakia 2.0 is a film about twenty years of independent Slovakia as seen from the perspective of ten film directors. It is composed of ten 10-minute films of different genres ranging from drama, through animation and documentaries, to experimental film. The ten recognised film directors who offer an answer to what is Slovakia include a wide range of generations, views and genres, namely Juraj Herz, Martin Šulík, Peter Kerekes, Zuzana Liová, Mišo Suchý, Ondrej Rudavský, Iveta Grófová, Peter Krištúfek, Viera Čákanyová, and Miro Jelok.

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For 14-year-old Adam, the world of his poor Romany village has only two joys: boxing and Julka, a friend his same age. But after the violent death of his father, the boy experiences life’s harsher side: his mother remarries and his stepfather demands obedience without seeking to deserve Adam’s respect. Gradually everything the boy was attached to starts to fall apart around him, and if his dead father hadn’t visited him he wouldn’t even know which path to take. The inexperience of youth, loneliness, and impulsiveness prevent him from using reason and cool consideration to face the obstacles in his way, and he even sometimes provokes those who stand by him. And thus he finds himself in a situation for which there is only one solution.

Open details →

A tribute to Martin Slivka, one of the most important personalities of Slovak cinematography and culture. He was the creator of Slovak documentary ethnographic film, director, screenwriter, dramaturgist, film theoretician, pedagogue, author and ethnograph, but mainly – exceptional person. This documentary is not only a remembrance of maestro Slivka through words of his close friends and colleagues, but also an attempt to slightly uncover the secret of his rich life and work.

Open details →

Four friends, Karel, Milan, Tomáš, and Vinco, lose their jobs in Ostrava’s working-class districts and, with their livelihoods gone, struggle to redefine themselves. They launch various business ventures but lack experience, leading to repeated failures. Pressure mounts on their friendships and private lives as tensions flare. Through setbacks and mutual support, they embark on a journey of self-discovery, learning resilience, solidarity, and the true meaning of identity and camaraderie in a changing world.

Open details →

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Open details →

A Czech director wrestles with problems personal and political during the Prague spring of 1968.

Open details →

Ten short unrelated stories that move chronologically through Slovakia's twentieth-century history as seen from the perspective of life in small towns and villages.

Open details →

A four-story omnibus depicting different Czech slices-of-life from the titular city.

Open details →

In Slovakia, the sixteen year-old Terezka is discharged from her school with a letter to her mother. Along her surrealistic journey to find her mother, Terezka entwines reality and fantasy and meets a man that is hired to burn clothes; a woman buried on the ground; a young bride that is marrying the forty and something year-old widow of his brother to support her family as a tradition in their village; her younger brother that is intern in a special school; a decadent TV comedian and his wife; a powerful mobster in the kitchen of a restaurant; one lover of her mother in her former address; and finally her promiscuous mother that advises her to travel through the world.

Open details →

Jakub's life arrived at a dead-end. He leaves his job, and gets into conflict with his father. The trouble just grows by his relation with a married woman. Breaking out, Jakub realizes the pleasures of the countryside in the old garden of his grandfather. He finds true love with an angel, and encounters various exciting moments of his new free life. Strange visitors arrive, and he wont get back to town anymore.

Open details →

A film about the uncertainties faced by a man in post-Communist Slovakia, his relationship with a teenage son and English teacher girlfriend who's soon to return home to England.

Open details →

A wonderful dark tale of coming of age in a country in transformation - then Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) in 1990s. Against the backdrop of a regime change and general crisis of basic values, a young man is finding his way into adult life. Playing a part in a love (hate?) triangle he does not fully understand until the conclusion, he desperately tries to make sense of the unpredictable behavior of the other two main characters which is linked to the secrets lurking in their past. All this while he is not sure about his own role in a world where yesterday's truths mean nothing today. Brilliant actors in a brilliant film that even gives you a glimpse of hope at the end.

Open details →

A television production based on Bozena Slančíková-Timrava's short stories about social and moral conditions in a Slovak village in the 1930s.

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