Servants to open IFF Cinematik 2020
The 15th International Film Festival Cinematik (September 10 – 15, 2020, Piešťany) will focus on Polish cinema and present many Slovak films. Non-competitive section In the House dedicated to Slovak cinema will present a selection of new feature-length and short films. Slovak documentaries that premiered during the period of one year before the festival will compete within Cinematik.doc.
In Slovak premiere, Ivan Ostrochovský’s latest feature Servants will reveal the untold history of the church’s involvement with the communist regime during the cold war. Furthemore, the non-competitive section In the House offers a fistful of domestic premieres. Shadow Country (d. Bohdan Sláma) tells the story of the inhabitants of a forgotten village close to the Austrian border as the events of the 1930s to 1950s enter their lives. Agnieszka Holland’s latest film Charlatan is about an extraordinary man and reflects the age-old struggle of the two principles that have controlled humanity from the very beginning. The section also features two documentaries. The social film experiment Caught in the Net (d. Barbora Chalupová, Vít Klusák) reveals the ways of predatorial behaviour online and catches the child molesters into their own traps, while Video Kings (d. Lukáš Bulava) portrays the import, copying and speed-dubbing of movies from the west in the socialist Czechoslovakia and, marginally, in Poland and Hungary. Festival offers to films to be enjoyed mainly by the young(er) audiences. Martina Saková's feature debut Summer Rebels tells a story about longing, friendship and overcoming unexpected setbacks, and The Pack (d. Tomáš Polenský) depicts 16-year-old-goalie who joins a new ice-hockey team, where everyone follows exclusively the law of the stronger. A selection of five short films from the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava will be screened at Cinematik as well, notably Poetika Anima by Kriss Sagan, The Manifesto of Despise by Kristián Grupač, Trust Me by Zlata Golecová, R + J by Martina Buchelová, The Fire Report by Katarína Jonisová, and The March by Michal Blaško. Joanna Kożuch’s animated Music Box will represent Slovak professional short film production. The other short film selection will present the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica production: Fighter (d. Matúš Men) and Jan's Grain (d. Michal Stašák, Jakub Gajdoš). New documentary series ICONS, about the oldest living generation of Slovak architects, will be represented by the episode about Ferdinand Milučký (d. Dorota Vlnová).
Six documentaries will vie for the Literary Fund Cinematik.doc Award. Viera Čákanyová's feature debut FREM reacts to the current wave of post-humanist thinking caused by the development of technology and artificial intelligence as well as the climate crisis. In The Golden Land (d. Dominik Jursa), the inhabitants of three small municipalities in the eastern Slovakia stand up against a large American oil company. Following in the footsteps of the Yazidis genocide, documentary Devil's Worshipers (d. Tomáš Davidov, Matej Šulc) enters Iraq and Syria. Four Slovak climbers attempt to climb the southwest wall of the Mount Everest in Pavol Barabáš's Everest - the Hardest Way. Director Anna Grusková approaches five extraordinary personalities from the Czechoslovak theatrical history who were fatally trapped by their passion for their profession and the society in which they lived in Life for Theater and documentary Paradise on Earth (d. Jaro Vojtek) reveals the professional and personal struggles of journalist Andrej Bán.
Václav Marhoul's The Painted Bird will be screened within Meeting Point Europe, a collection of the best European films made in 2018 and 2019, based on the votes of European film critics.
Web:
www.cinematik.sk/en/
Related AIC articles:
Cinematik 2019
Cinematik 2018
Cinematik 2017
Cinematik 2016
published: 09.09.2020
updated: 10.09.2020