Set against the majestic mountains of central Slovakia, first time director Vladimir Balko explores the difficulties and challenges one former inmate must face upon his release from prison. Tono has just been released after a five-year stint in prison for lumber theft. Although attempting to stay on the straight and narrow, Tono is faced with many obstacles including building a relationship with his son, saving his now fragile marriage, and avoiding the tempting lure of his previous life of crime. A story of friendship and betrayal, SOUL AT PEACE was an official selection at the prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Slovakia, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. The family of the young Jewish Martin Friedmann gathers to celebrate his bar mitzvah and make a solemn promise that they will all meet again a year later around the same table; but the storms of war and anti-Semitic fanaticism will lead each of them down very different paths.
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.
The story takes place in the Serbian province of Vojvodina in a multi-ethnic setting. It is a story about love and faith, that is, faith in love that conquers time and space. The director has explained that the story has been derived from a literary blog, which is popular among young members of Vojvodina's Hungarian minority and which was originally launched in 2010.
Márta, a 40-year-old neurosurgeon, falls in love. She leaves her shining American career behind and returns to Budapest to start a new life with the man she loves. But she waits for him at the Liberty Bridge in vain - he does not appear at their rendezvous. Márta starts to search for him desperately, but when she finally finds him, the love of her life claims that they have never met before.
This story actually happened in the region around the city of Sumperk in Jeseniky Mountains in May 1945. The disappearance of Agnes, the German wife of a Czech forester Jan Olsan is a dark mystery. She is the only one who knows who and for what reason is looking for her. It's the end of the war, times are bad and the Czechs are coming back from the inland to the frontier. The guards are forming and soldiers are coming. Fate brings together the outlaw Jan and his German brother-in-law Jurgen who has just returned from the eastern front line. Both men are looking for exactly the same woman and that is Agnes. But Agnes escaped; she is running away through the deep woods followed by the most powerful man of the county. Running away for what she had witnessed. The fatality of the relationship between Agnes and Jan can only be learned in the mountains on this thorny journey.
A boy is accidentally killed at an informal hunt somewhere on the border of two European countries. One of the people involved is Minister Berger, the hot candidate for the influential post of High Commissioner for Water Management, who will be tasked with finding the solution to increasing water shortages across Europe. The government hires secret agent Steiner to hush up the scandal. The more he investigates the case, the more embroiled he becomes in dilemmas of power and its execution.
It's spring 1939. The bishop in Banska Bystrica finds out that in the village of Piargy, that was buried by an avalanche a few days ago, the Antichrist was born. The bishop calls on priest Balaz and asks him to investigate the statements of Johanka, the only survivor of the catastrophe. Balaz wants to know what exactly happened in Piargy.
A captivating story of a woman tested by a life full of passion, the cruelty of fate and unrestrained love. The film, which takes place in southern Slovakia, in the solitude hidden in apricot orchards, will draw you into the whirlwind of three men's passions for one fateful woman and her love for them, with all the sorrows and joys that only life can bring. The sun, the smell of ripening apricots and the search for your own happiness will win you over in the story of a strong woman who loves and longs to be loved... like all of us.
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.
“A burned-out group of Brno intellectuals decides to go to Kolochava in Ukraine to perform ‘A Ballad for a Bandit’ there.” With these words, the author's collective presents their film, in which they use primarily documentary imagery to compose a lyrical grotesque about an epochal trip, which might be their goal. But it doesn't have to be. The main tool of expression here is the film’s edit, which places various shots, statements, and meanings next to each other, often in a sort of productive conflict. Just like in a poem, the “poetic function” of art and its ability to serve as the primary tool for expressing beauty is manifested in full force before our very eyes.
A young doctor, former partisan leader - is he a hero, or a murderer? His wife - a victim, or a minion of a totalitarian regime? And his lover - a political careerist, or a naive single mother betrayed by fate? The dramatic fates of these antiheroes from the era of rise of communism are stories of violence and resistance, weakness and courage, much like the ones that take place today.
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.
Three women, three stories, one film.
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.
13 year old Lili fights to protect her dog Hagen, and is devastated when her father sets Hagen free on the streets. Still innocently believing love can conquer any difficulty, Lili sets out to save her dog. Failing in his desperate efforts to find his beloved owner, Hagen joins a canine revolt leading a revolution against their human abusers.
In the royal castle, Prince Matthias feels like a prisoner. His father forces him to get engaged to Princess Beatrix, whom he does not love. Matthias takes advantage of a chance encounter with the rogue Tomas, who is his identical double. The boys swap clothes and agree to try on each other's lives for a day. In the morning, Matej is wrongly accused of theft and imprisoned. Tomas has to stay in the castle and although he tries to convince the king that he is not the true prince, no one believes him. The two boys must face a world they have never known before, grow up and learn to take responsibility for their decisions. Their reward will be that they both find true love.
The Queen of the Waterland gives the King Juraj access to the water of life when his daughter is seriously ill. However, if the magic fluid falls into the wrong hands, it loses its power.
Today‘s eastern Slovakia. The historian Rimko returns here after many years with his young lover to search for answers to the difficult questions of his own life attitudes, mistakes and moral debts in the land of his childhood. His life seems to be balanced even in the hectic times of political changes of recent years. Having worked for twenty years as an expert on the Middle Ages, he feels himself to be a decent man, moderately successful in his profession, and ultimately attractive in his maturity and discretion to his much younger partner. And yet he is eager to prove to himself and his former friends that it is possible to catch up and pay off old debts. Even the seemingly idyllic setting for a beautiful holiday is marred by the brutality of the times - a military defector with stolen ammunition desperately seeks refuge.
Eight chapters on the disaster that ensues after a simple man signs a blank piece of paper when handed a pen.
Enrique lives with his grandmother in a small village in the “Hungry Valley,” while his mother Martina works far away, relying on Enrique to complete various tasks in hopes of saving enough money to reunite. When he’s not working for his mother, Enrique spends his summer riding mopeds with his friends. However, Martina soon becomes the subject of village gossip, as her intentions may not be as honorable as they once seemed. With the help of his friends, Enrique uncovers her true nature and must decide whether to remain loyal to his mother or forge his own path and cut ties with her.
Ema & Death’s-Head deals with the precarious border between humanism and the protection of one’s own life in situations when one excludes the other. Marika Sándorfi is hiding a Jewish boy during the dramatic era of the First Slovak State on the Slovak-Hungarian border. Šimon Holan, the boy in hiding, has a special ability to survive thanks to dreaming and a child’s fantasy.
30-year-old Anna seeks a stable foundation in her relationships but unknowingly repeats the manipulative patterns learned from her mother. When she crosses paths with a terminally ill patient and his devoted wife, Anna experiences a profound love that transforms her life.
This simple story is the feature debut for well-known Slovak theater and television director Juraj Nvota. Set in a Slovak village at the turn of the last century, the story teems with passion, and repressed and hidden emotion. It delves into the search for identity, investigating both love and hatred, while dramatizing the tragic relationship between an adolescent girl (Tatiana Pauhofová) and her ambitious father (Ondrej Vetchý). Set against the striking though simple backdrop of a picturesque, even idyllic, landscape - one ostensibly cut off from any important historical, political, or social context whatsoever - the arrival of an unwanted individual evokes the onset of a cruel drama.