Cinema of Slovakia
Encyclopedia
The cinema of Slovakia encompasses a range of themes and styles typical of European cinema. Yet there are a certain number of recurring themes that are visible in the majority of the important works. These include rural settings, folk traditions, and carnival. Even in the field of experimental film-making, there is frequently a celebration of nature and tradition, as for example in Dušan Hanák's
Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972). The same applies to blockbusters like Juraj Jakubisko's
A Thousand-Year Old Bee (Tisícročná včela, 1983). The percentage of comedies, adventures, musicals, sci-fi films and similar genres has been low by comparison to dramas
and historical films that used to include a notable subset of social commentaries
on events from the decade or two preceding the film. One of them, Ján Kadár's
and Elmar Klos's
The Shop on Main Street
(Obchod na korze, 1965), gave Slovak (as well as Czech
and generally Czechoslovak) filmmaking its first Oscar. Children's films were a perennial genre from the 1960s through the 1980s produced mainly as low-budget films by Slovak Television Bratislava. The themes of recent films have been mostly contemporary.
The center of Slovak filmmaking has been the Koliba studio (whose formal name changed several times) in Bratislava
. Some films conceived at the Barrandov Studios
in Prague
have had Slovak themes, actors, directors, and occasionally language, while Prague-based filmmakers and actors have sometimes worked in Slovakia. In line with Slovak
, Hungarian
, and Czech
histories, their past sharing of the Kingdom of Hungary
and Czechoslovakia
, there is early overlap between Slovak and Hungarian film, and later between Slovak and Czech film
. Some films are easily sorted out as one or the other, some films belong meaningfully to more than one national cinema.
Some 350 Slovak feature film
s have been made in the history of Slovak cinema. It has produced some notable cinematic works that have been well received by critics, as well as some domestic blockbusters. In recent years, Slovak films have often been made by working (wholly or partly) with foreign production companies. Joint Slovak and Czech projects have been particularly common. The Slovak film industry has been dogged by lack of money intensified by the country's small audience (5.4 million inhabitants
), which translates to the films' limited potential for primary, domestic revenue.
A Slovak-themed drama, Snowdrop from the Tatras (Sněženka z Tater, dir. Olaf Larus-Racek, 1919), about a maturing girl looking for her place in a city appeared within months of the creation of Czechoslovakia. The first Slovak full-length feature
movie was Jaroslav Siakeľ's Jánošík
of 1921. It placed Slovak filmmaking among the first ten cinemas in the world to produce such a film. Other feature films were released early on, but the absence of a permanent local studio and the competition from the emerging conglomerate of studios and distributors (AB Studio, later Barrandov
) in nearby Prague proved daunting. An early international recognition came from the International Venice Film Festival for Karol Plicka's The Earth Sings (Zem spieva, 1933). Martin Frič's Jánošík of 1935 was released internationally, including in Italy and Germany, and was shown in Slovak-American communities until the 1950s.
The first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia (probably the third such department in Europe) was opened at the School of Industrial Arts in Bratislava
in 1938, headed by Plicka and with the future Oscar-winning director Ján Kadár
among the students, but it was closed after Slovakia's independence in 1939.
, but it made no feature films during that period. Although with a substantial post-war makeover and change of name, the studio continued its production after Czechoslovakia was partly reconstituted in 1945, and the feature film industry began to take off. During a brief period after the war, the Communists had not yet gained full control, allowing one or two interesting films to be made in the Central Europe
an countries, including Paľo Bielik's Wolves' Lairs (Vlčie diery, 1948) in Slovakia. The Communist Party, which valued the propaganda potential of cinema, took power in Czechoslovakia in the coup d'état of 1948
.
, 1949) was popular at the time, and so her "ascent" to an industrial laborer was laid out as a better future for thousands of young women.
Unlike their colleagues in Prague
and neighboring countries in the first years after the Communist takeovers, the Slovak directors of development were consistently unable to "meet the plan" outlined by the Communist Party and were unsuccessful in drafting the required number of socialist-realist projects, which had an impact on the number of films passed for production although the money for them would have been made available by the authorities. Most of the resulting films were neither popular nor critically acclaimed. Exceptions among the former included Josef Mach's folkloric
musical Native Country (Rodná zem, 1953) with ticket sales, relative to population, among the highest in Slovak filmmaking. Across the Communist-ruled part of Central Europe
, there was a recognition that for an active and popular film industry to exist, film-makers should be given more control of production. This process accelerated towards the end of the 1950s.
and the French New Wave
to produce Slovakia's first international film successes. Although there were isolated successful feature films from Slovakia leading up to the 1960s, the first Slovak film to make a well-marked international impact was not produced until 1962 — Štefan Uher's
The Sun in a Net
(Slnko v sieti). It is frequently thought of as an aesthetic precursor to the Czechoslovak New Wave
, which emerged over the following years. Its opaque symbolism and anti-propagandist themes caused it to be harshly criticized by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia.
Another important work from this time was Peter Solan's The Boxer and Death (Boxer a smrť, 1962), which was set in a Nazi concentration camp and directly tackled the Holocaust. The Boxer and Death was one of a series of Czechoslovak films from the 1960s that looked back at the moral dilemmas of ordinary people caught up in the Second World War and encouraged viewers to re-evaluate their responses to the war. Many of these films chose the Holocaust as their focus, and Slovak director Ján Kadár
, co-directing with frequent collaborator Elmar Klos
, achieved a major international success in this genre with the Czech-produced, Slovak-language The Shop on Main Street
(Obchod na korze), which won a Special Mention when it played at the Cannes Film Festival
in 1965 and went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film the following year.
The Czech feature The Cremator
(Spalovač mrtvol, 1968), Slovak-born Juraj Herz's grotesque black comedy about the social context of the Final Solution
, is a cult film in both the Czech and Slovak republics and has an increasing reputation internationally. Herz is a concentration camp survivor, but he never made a film directly addressing that experience.
The second half of the decade saw the emergence of a new generation of directors. Three of their films were still ranked among the ten best Slovak films in a poll of film academics and critics in the late 1990s that also listed The Sun in a Net
and The Shop on Main Street
. By comparison to earlier Slovak films, the three leaned towards avant-garde filmmaking and were consequently more successful in art houses than in wide release: Juraj Jakubisko's
two features Deserters and Pilgrims (Zbehovia a pútnici, 1968) and Birds, Orphans and Fools (Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni, 1969) and Dušan Hanák's 322 (the code for cancer in medical records of diseases, 1969).
of Czechoslovakia in 1968, firm government control was regained over the film industry. Almost all of the major Slovak directors initially found it more difficult to work. Dušan Hanák's acclaimed feature-length documentary Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972) sought a possible refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive on the margins of official production and yet, executed with a finesse that gave it a wide international appeal. It visited remote, trapped places in order to meditate on what lies hidden beneath the concept of "an authentic life". An elegiac work whose images could apply to Appalachia
or any other poor region, Pictures of the Old World still offended the authorities and the distribution was stopped two days after its limited release.
Despite the circumstances, only one film, Martin Hollý Jr.'s Fever (Horúčka, 1975), was produced to advance the Communist Party's coercively negative view of the unprecedented relaxation of communism in 1968. Dušan Hanák
was able to make his poetically realistic Rosy Dreams
(Ružové sny
, 1976), the first Central Europe
an feature film with the Roma at the core of the story and a singular creative achievement of the decade. Popular entertainment was briefly served by Martin Ťapák's Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe (Pacho, hybský zbojník, 1976), a spoof on the legend of Jánošík
that had already appeared in several Slovak and Polish film versions. Government control was generally greater in the Federal Capital of Prague
than it was in Bratislava
, Slovakia's State Capital, so some directors from Prague made films in Slovakia
to avoid restrictions on film-making in the Czech half
of the federation, including Juraj Herz (returning to his native country) and Jan Švankmajer
.
) or only an occasional feature (Dušan Hanák
) returned with important and mature works. Highlights from this period include Hanák’s
I Love, You Love
(Ja milujem, ty miluješ, 1989), Jakubisko's A Thousand-Year Old Bee (Tisícročná včela, 1983), Uher's
She Grazed Horses on Concrete
, AKA A Ticket to Heaven (Pásla kone na betóne, 1982), Martin Hollý's Signum Laudis (1980), Zoro Záhon's The Assistant (Pomocník, 1982) and Dušan Rapoš's
A Fountain for Susan (Fontána pre Zuzanu, 1986). This streak of successful film-making is all the more remarkable given that in other Communist countries the 1980s, especially the late '80s, were generally speaking a fallow time, particularly in the Czech Republic
.
, the decrease in potential audience by the split of Czechoslovakia
in 1993, and a sharp decrease in the previous high subsidies for culture and film provided by the Communist government.
Ironically, the work of the only major Slovak director to emerge in this period, Martin Šulík
, has been more popular internationally, and particularly in the Czech Republic and Poland, than in his native country.
Also, under Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar
, the Koliba Film Studio was privatized in 1995 and within two years Mečiar's children are said to have held an 80% stake in the company. Allegations of asset-stripping and fraud dogged the company, and after Mečiar was voted out of office in 1998 the Ministry of Culture sued Koliba to recover money given to make feature films that were not produced, one of a number of suits launched by the post-Mečiar government in relation to companies that had been privatized by Mečiar. The legal action dragged on through the early 2000s and did nothing to clarify the position of Koliba, effectively prolonging the stagnation and leaving the studios dilapidated and in disrepair.
Nevertheless, the Slovak film industry did not completely grind to a halt and important post-Communist era films include Šulík's Everything I Like (Všetko čo mam rád, 1992), and The Garden (Záhrada, 1995), both lyrical films that depict tense father-son relationships, and Vlado Balco's Rivers of Babylon
(1998), which is sometimes interpreted as a critical allegory of Mečiar's rise to power. Juraj Jakubisko, working in Prague, made An Ambiguous Report about the End of the World (Nejasná zpráva o konci světa, 1997), at the time the most expensive film ever made in the Czech Republic.
The cinematographer Martin Štrba has also been highly successful in this period, being respected in both the Czech and Slovak republics. He collaborates regularly with Martin Šulík and the Czech director Vladimír Michálek
and has also worked with the Czech New Wave icon Věra Chytilová
.
In 1999, an international film festival was started in Bratislava in an attempt to try and foster a better environment for making feature films and larger appreciation among Slovak audiences.
.
Particularly intense debate arose in the 1990s around the Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street
, which was jointly directed by one Budapest-born Jewish Slovak director (Ján Kadár
) and one Moravian-Czech director (Elmar Klos
), based on a short story by Jewish Slovak author Ladislav Grosman, financed by the central authorities through the films studio at Prague and shot on location in Slovakia in the Slovak language with Slovak actors. Czechs generally consider the film to be Czech (while they see the theme as Slovak) on the basis of the film's studio and the home of its directors; Slovaks generally consider the film to be Slovak on the basis of its language, themes, and filming locations, but some see it as Czech because the sound stage
was at and the centrally-distributed government funding was channeled through the Barrandov Film Studio in Prague.
Dušan Hanák
Dušan Hanák is a Slovak film director.Hanák graduated from the FAMU in Prague in 1965. He began with a series of shorts at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava...
Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972). The same applies to blockbusters like Juraj Jakubisko's
Juraj Jakubisko
Juraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
A Thousand-Year Old Bee (Tisícročná včela, 1983). The percentage of comedies, adventures, musicals, sci-fi films and similar genres has been low by comparison to dramas
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
and historical films that used to include a notable subset of social commentaries
Social commentary
Social commentary is the act of rebelling against an individual, or a group of people by rhetorical means, or commentary on social issues or society...
on events from the decade or two preceding the film. One of them, Ján Kadár's
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street...
and Elmar Klos's
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos was a Czechoslovakian film director who collaborated for 17 years with Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with the film The Shop on Main Street.-References:...
The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street is a 1965 Czechoslovak film about the Aryanization programme during World War II in the Slovak State....
(Obchod na korze, 1965), gave Slovak (as well as Czech
Cinema of the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic was a seedbed for many acclaimed film directors.Three Czech/Czechoslovak movies that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film were The Shop on Main Street by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos in 1965, Closely Watched Trains by Jiří Menzel in 1967 and...
and generally Czechoslovak) filmmaking its first Oscar. Children's films were a perennial genre from the 1960s through the 1980s produced mainly as low-budget films by Slovak Television Bratislava. The themes of recent films have been mostly contemporary.
The center of Slovak filmmaking has been the Koliba studio (whose formal name changed several times) in Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
. Some films conceived at the Barrandov Studios
Barrandov Studios
Barrandov Studios is a famous set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe.Several of the movies filmed there won Academy Awards...
in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
have had Slovak themes, actors, directors, and occasionally language, while Prague-based filmmakers and actors have sometimes worked in Slovakia. In line with Slovak
History of Slovakia
This article discusses the history of the territory of Slovakia.- Palaeolithic :Radiocarbon dating puts the oldest surviving archaeological artifacts from Slovakia - found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom - at 270,000 BCE, in the Early Paleolithic era...
, Hungarian
History of Hungary
Hungary is a country in central Europe. Its history under this name dates to the early Middle Ages, when the Pannonian Basin was colonized by the Magyars, a semi-nomadic people from what is now central-northern Russia...
, and Czech
History of the Czech lands
The history of the Czech lands includes the following periods:* Slavs: Bohemians and Moravians – arrival into Czech area during the 6th century * Samo’s realm * Moravian principality in Moravia* Great Moravia...
histories, their past sharing of the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, there is early overlap between Slovak and Hungarian film, and later between Slovak and Czech film
Cinema of the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic was a seedbed for many acclaimed film directors.Three Czech/Czechoslovak movies that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film were The Shop on Main Street by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos in 1965, Closely Watched Trains by Jiří Menzel in 1967 and...
. Some films are easily sorted out as one or the other, some films belong meaningfully to more than one national cinema.
Some 350 Slovak feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s have been made in the history of Slovak cinema. It has produced some notable cinematic works that have been well received by critics, as well as some domestic blockbusters. In recent years, Slovak films have often been made by working (wholly or partly) with foreign production companies. Joint Slovak and Czech projects have been particularly common. The Slovak film industry has been dogged by lack of money intensified by the country's small audience (5.4 million inhabitants
Demographics of Slovakia
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Slovakia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population...
), which translates to the films' limited potential for primary, domestic revenue.
Early 20th century
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
movie was Jaroslav Siakeľ's Jánošík
Jánošík (1921 film)
Jánošík is a Slovak black-and-white silent film from 1921. It relates the popular legend of the highwayman Juraj Jánošík. It shows the filmmakers' experience with early American movies in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, and in sequences inspired by Westerns...
of 1921. It placed Slovak filmmaking among the first ten cinemas in the world to produce such a film. Other feature films were released early on, but the absence of a permanent local studio and the competition from the emerging conglomerate of studios and distributors (AB Studio, later Barrandov
Barrandov Studios
Barrandov Studios is a famous set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe.Several of the movies filmed there won Academy Awards...
) in nearby Prague proved daunting. An early international recognition came from the International Venice Film Festival for Karol Plicka's The Earth Sings (Zem spieva, 1933). Martin Frič's Jánošík of 1935 was released internationally, including in Italy and Germany, and was shown in Slovak-American communities until the 1950s.
The first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia (probably the third such department in Europe) was opened at the School of Industrial Arts in Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
in 1938, headed by Plicka and with the future Oscar-winning director Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street...
among the students, but it was closed after Slovakia's independence in 1939.
The 1940s
The authorities set up the short-film studio Nástup (Line-up), the precursor of the Koliba Studio,http://mapy.zoznam.sk/index.pl?zoom=9&pos_x=-573882&pos_y=-1277770&size=small&lang=sk&sipka=1&name=Bre%E8tanov%E1%2C%20Bratislava to produce newsreels during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, but it made no feature films during that period. Although with a substantial post-war makeover and change of name, the studio continued its production after Czechoslovakia was partly reconstituted in 1945, and the feature film industry began to take off. During a brief period after the war, the Communists had not yet gained full control, allowing one or two interesting films to be made in the Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an countries, including Paľo Bielik's Wolves' Lairs (Vlčie diery, 1948) in Slovakia. The Communist Party, which valued the propaganda potential of cinema, took power in Czechoslovakia in the coup d'état of 1948
Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948
The Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in over four decades...
.
The 1950s
Within a few years, film production was heavily controlled by the state and films were not allowed to undermine Stalinism. Psychologising was frowned upon and characters became cardboard cut-outs subservient to political ideals. A dominant feature of film poetics of this period was descriptive-symbolic stylization. Even the titles of films like Dam (Priehrada, Paľo Bielik, 1950), Young Hearts (Mladé srdcia, Václav Kubásek, 1952), and Hamlets Have Started Off (Lazy sa pohli, Paľo Bielik, 1952) were designed to represent social and societal change. The title of The Struggle Will End Tomorrow (Boj sa skončí zajtra, Miroslav Cikán, 1951) symbolized the irreversibility of what was shown to be the progress of the working class. The name of the leading character in Kathy (Katka, Ján KadárJán Kadár
Ján Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street...
, 1949) was popular at the time, and so her "ascent" to an industrial laborer was laid out as a better future for thousands of young women.
Unlike their colleagues in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and neighboring countries in the first years after the Communist takeovers, the Slovak directors of development were consistently unable to "meet the plan" outlined by the Communist Party and were unsuccessful in drafting the required number of socialist-realist projects, which had an impact on the number of films passed for production although the money for them would have been made available by the authorities. Most of the resulting films were neither popular nor critically acclaimed. Exceptions among the former included Josef Mach's folkloric
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
musical Native Country (Rodná zem, 1953) with ticket sales, relative to population, among the highest in Slovak filmmaking. Across the Communist-ruled part of Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
, there was a recognition that for an active and popular film industry to exist, film-makers should be given more control of production. This process accelerated towards the end of the 1950s.
The 1960s
According to a 1990s poll of film specialists, five of the ten best Slovak films were made in the 1960s. As in neighbouring countries, the early 1960s saw the fruition of the policy of relaxation, which mixed powerfully with external cinematic influences such as Italian NeorealismItalian neorealism
Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
and the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
to produce Slovakia's first international film successes. Although there were isolated successful feature films from Slovakia leading up to the 1960s, the first Slovak film to make a well-marked international impact was not produced until 1962 — Štefan Uher's
Štefan Uher
Štefan Uher was a Slovak film director, one of the founders of the "Czechoslovak New Wave"....
The Sun in a Net
The Sun in a Net
The Sun in a Net is a 1963 film that became a key film in the development of Slovak and Czechoslovak cinema from the mandated Socialist-Realist filmmaking of the repressive 1950s towards the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave and socially critical or experimental films of the 1960s marked by a...
(Slnko v sieti). It is frequently thought of as an aesthetic precursor to the Czechoslovak New Wave
Czechoslovak New Wave
The Czechoslovak New Wave is a term used for the early films of 1960s Czech directors Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papoušek, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Jaromil Jireš, Vojtěch Jasný, Evald Schorm and Slovak directors Juraj Herz, Juraj Jakubisko, Štefan Uher, Ján Kádár, Elo...
, which emerged over the following years. Its opaque symbolism and anti-propagandist themes caused it to be harshly criticized by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia.
Another important work from this time was Peter Solan's The Boxer and Death (Boxer a smrť, 1962), which was set in a Nazi concentration camp and directly tackled the Holocaust. The Boxer and Death was one of a series of Czechoslovak films from the 1960s that looked back at the moral dilemmas of ordinary people caught up in the Second World War and encouraged viewers to re-evaluate their responses to the war. Many of these films chose the Holocaust as their focus, and Slovak director Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street...
, co-directing with frequent collaborator Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos was a Czechoslovakian film director who collaborated for 17 years with Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with the film The Shop on Main Street.-References:...
, achieved a major international success in this genre with the Czech-produced, Slovak-language The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street is a 1965 Czechoslovak film about the Aryanization programme during World War II in the Slovak State....
(Obchod na korze), which won a Special Mention when it played at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 1965 and went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film the following year.
The Czech feature The Cremator
The Cremator
The Cremator is a 1969 Czechoslovak horror comedy/drama film directed by Juraj Herz, based on a novel by Ladislav Fuks. The screenplay was written by Herz and Fuks. The film was selected as the Czechoslovakian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 42nd Academy Awards, but was not...
(Spalovač mrtvol, 1968), Slovak-born Juraj Herz's grotesque black comedy about the social context of the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
, is a cult film in both the Czech and Slovak republics and has an increasing reputation internationally. Herz is a concentration camp survivor, but he never made a film directly addressing that experience.
The second half of the decade saw the emergence of a new generation of directors. Three of their films were still ranked among the ten best Slovak films in a poll of film academics and critics in the late 1990s that also listed The Sun in a Net
The Sun in a Net
The Sun in a Net is a 1963 film that became a key film in the development of Slovak and Czechoslovak cinema from the mandated Socialist-Realist filmmaking of the repressive 1950s towards the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave and socially critical or experimental films of the 1960s marked by a...
and The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street is a 1965 Czechoslovak film about the Aryanization programme during World War II in the Slovak State....
. By comparison to earlier Slovak films, the three leaned towards avant-garde filmmaking and were consequently more successful in art houses than in wide release: Juraj Jakubisko's
Juraj Jakubisko
Juraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
two features Deserters and Pilgrims (Zbehovia a pútnici, 1968) and Birds, Orphans and Fools (Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni, 1969) and Dušan Hanák's 322 (the code for cancer in medical records of diseases, 1969).
The 1970s
Following the Soviet-led invasionPrague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
of Czechoslovakia in 1968, firm government control was regained over the film industry. Almost all of the major Slovak directors initially found it more difficult to work. Dušan Hanák's acclaimed feature-length documentary Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972) sought a possible refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive on the margins of official production and yet, executed with a finesse that gave it a wide international appeal. It visited remote, trapped places in order to meditate on what lies hidden beneath the concept of "an authentic life". An elegiac work whose images could apply to Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
or any other poor region, Pictures of the Old World still offended the authorities and the distribution was stopped two days after its limited release.
Despite the circumstances, only one film, Martin Hollý Jr.'s Fever (Horúčka, 1975), was produced to advance the Communist Party's coercively negative view of the unprecedented relaxation of communism in 1968. Dušan Hanák
Dušan Hanák
Dušan Hanák is a Slovak film director.Hanák graduated from the FAMU in Prague in 1965. He began with a series of shorts at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava...
was able to make his poetically realistic Rosy Dreams
Rosy Dreams
Rosy Dreams is a 1977 Czechoslovak film. Despite its whimsical poetic style, it was the first Central European feature film that put the Romani community at the center stage in a realistic manner...
(Ružové sny
Rosy Dreams
Rosy Dreams is a 1977 Czechoslovak film. Despite its whimsical poetic style, it was the first Central European feature film that put the Romani community at the center stage in a realistic manner...
, 1976), the first Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an feature film with the Roma at the core of the story and a singular creative achievement of the decade. Popular entertainment was briefly served by Martin Ťapák's Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe (Pacho, hybský zbojník, 1976), a spoof on the legend of Jánošík
Juraj Jánošík
Juraj Jánošík was a famous Slovak Carpathian Highwayman....
that had already appeared in several Slovak and Polish film versions. Government control was generally greater in the Federal Capital of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
than it was in Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
, Slovakia's State Capital, so some directors from Prague made films in Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
to avoid restrictions on film-making in the Czech half
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
of the federation, including Juraj Herz (returning to his native country) and Jan Švankmajer
Jan Švankmajer
Jan Švankmajer is a Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his surreal animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and many others.- Life and career :Jan...
.
The 1980s
The more relaxed conditions became apparent in the 1980s when Slovakia had perhaps its most successful film-making period, and acclaimed directors from the 1960s who had been able to make only short films (Juraj JakubiskoJuraj Jakubisko
Juraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
) or only an occasional feature (Dušan Hanák
Dušan Hanák
Dušan Hanák is a Slovak film director.Hanák graduated from the FAMU in Prague in 1965. He began with a series of shorts at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava...
) returned with important and mature works. Highlights from this period include Hanák’s
Dušan Hanák
Dušan Hanák is a Slovak film director.Hanák graduated from the FAMU in Prague in 1965. He began with a series of shorts at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava...
I Love, You Love
I Love, You Love
I Love, You Love is a 1989 Czech drama film directed by Dušan Hanák. It was entered into the 39th Berlin International Film Festival where Hanák won the Silver Bear for Best Director.-Cast:* Roman Klosowski as Vinco* Iva Janzurová as Viera...
(Ja milujem, ty miluješ, 1989), Jakubisko's A Thousand-Year Old Bee (Tisícročná včela, 1983), Uher's
Štefan Uher
Štefan Uher was a Slovak film director, one of the founders of the "Czechoslovak New Wave"....
She Grazed Horses on Concrete
She Grazed Horses on Concrete
She Grazed Horses on Concrete is a film which lays out serious topics that include a woman's capacity to hold her own in society, sexual mores, and abortion, and balances them with comedy and irony in proportions that instantly made it one of the biggest domestic blockbusters in Slovak cinema.A...
, AKA A Ticket to Heaven (Pásla kone na betóne, 1982), Martin Hollý's Signum Laudis (1980), Zoro Záhon's The Assistant (Pomocník, 1982) and Dušan Rapoš's
Dusan Rapos
Dušan Rapoš is a Slovak film director, screenwriter and composer. He is married to Eva Vejmělková, a famous Czech actress. Initially, he was a journalist and worked as an editor at Slovak Radio...
A Fountain for Susan (Fontána pre Zuzanu, 1986). This streak of successful film-making is all the more remarkable given that in other Communist countries the 1980s, especially the late '80s, were generally speaking a fallow time, particularly in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
.
The 1990s
In contrast to the 1980s, the decade following 1990 was one of the worst in the history of Slovak cinema. Only a few full-length feature films were produced in this period (36 films with major Slovak participation between 1992 and 2002) and interest in domestic films practically vanished. The reasons for this were a desperate lack of money in Slovak culture as a result of the transformation of Slovakia's economy following the Velvet RevolutionVelvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
, the decrease in potential audience by the split of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in 1993, and a sharp decrease in the previous high subsidies for culture and film provided by the Communist government.
Ironically, the work of the only major Slovak director to emerge in this period, Martin Šulík
Martin Šulík
Martin Šulík is a Slovak film director. He studied film directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava from which he graduated in 1986...
, has been more popular internationally, and particularly in the Czech Republic and Poland, than in his native country.
Also, under Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar
Vladimír Meciar
Vladimír Mečiar is a Slovak politician who was Prime Minister of Slovakia from 1990 to 1991, from 1992 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1998. He is the leader of the People's Party - Movement for a Democratic Slovakia...
, the Koliba Film Studio was privatized in 1995 and within two years Mečiar's children are said to have held an 80% stake in the company. Allegations of asset-stripping and fraud dogged the company, and after Mečiar was voted out of office in 1998 the Ministry of Culture sued Koliba to recover money given to make feature films that were not produced, one of a number of suits launched by the post-Mečiar government in relation to companies that had been privatized by Mečiar. The legal action dragged on through the early 2000s and did nothing to clarify the position of Koliba, effectively prolonging the stagnation and leaving the studios dilapidated and in disrepair.
Nevertheless, the Slovak film industry did not completely grind to a halt and important post-Communist era films include Šulík's Everything I Like (Všetko čo mam rád, 1992), and The Garden (Záhrada, 1995), both lyrical films that depict tense father-son relationships, and Vlado Balco's Rivers of Babylon
Rivers of Babylon
"Rivers of Babylon" is a rastafarian song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group The Melodians in 1970. The Melodians' original versions of the song appeared in the sound track to the 1972 movie The Harder They Come and the 1999 Nicolas Cage movie...
(1998), which is sometimes interpreted as a critical allegory of Mečiar's rise to power. Juraj Jakubisko, working in Prague, made An Ambiguous Report about the End of the World (Nejasná zpráva o konci světa, 1997), at the time the most expensive film ever made in the Czech Republic.
The cinematographer Martin Štrba has also been highly successful in this period, being respected in both the Czech and Slovak republics. He collaborates regularly with Martin Šulík and the Czech director Vladimír Michálek
Vladimír Michálek
Vladimír Michálek is a Czech film director and screenwriter.- Life :Michálek graduated from Czech film Academy FAMU, Prague, in 1992. Starting during his academic study he was filming documentaries...
and has also worked with the Czech New Wave icon Věra Chytilová
Vera Chytilová
Věra Chytilová is an avant-garde Czech film director and pioneer of Czech cinema. Banned by the Czechoslovakian government in the 1960s, she is best known for her Czech New Wave film, Sedmikrásky...
.
In 1999, an international film festival was started in Bratislava in an attempt to try and foster a better environment for making feature films and larger appreciation among Slovak audiences.
Questions over national origin
Given that in the periods from the invention of film in 1896 to 1938 and from 1945 to 1992 Slovakia did not exist as an independent country, there has been some controversy over the naming of certain films as specifically either Slovak or Czech. Although the Czech and Slovak halves of Czechoslovakia each had separate languages, they were close enough for film talent to move freely between the two republics. As a result, during the Czechoslovak period — and even after it — a number of Slovak directors made Czech-language films in Prague, including Juraj Herz and Juraj JakubiskoJuraj Jakubisko
Juraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
.
Particularly intense debate arose in the 1990s around the Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street
The Shop on Main Street is a 1965 Czechoslovak film about the Aryanization programme during World War II in the Slovak State....
, which was jointly directed by one Budapest-born Jewish Slovak director (Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street...
) and one Moravian-Czech director (Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos was a Czechoslovakian film director who collaborated for 17 years with Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with the film The Shop on Main Street.-References:...
), based on a short story by Jewish Slovak author Ladislav Grosman, financed by the central authorities through the films studio at Prague and shot on location in Slovakia in the Slovak language with Slovak actors. Czechs generally consider the film to be Czech (while they see the theme as Slovak) on the basis of the film's studio and the home of its directors; Slovaks generally consider the film to be Slovak on the basis of its language, themes, and filming locations, but some see it as Czech because the sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
was at and the centrally-distributed government funding was channeled through the Barrandov Film Studio in Prague.
Notable films
- Soul at Peace (Pokoj v duši, 2009, Vladimír Balko)
- Blind Loves (Slepé lásky, 2008, Juraj Lehotský)
- Bathory (Bátorička, 2008, Juraj JakubiskoJuraj JakubiskoJuraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
) - The Garden (Záhrada, 1995, Martin ŠulíkMartin ŠulíkMartin Šulík is a Slovak film director. He studied film directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava from which he graduated in 1986...
) - Paper Heads (Papierové hlavy, 1995, Dušan HanákDušan HanákDušan Hanák is a Slovak film director.Hanák graduated from the FAMU in Prague in 1965. He began with a series of shorts at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava...
) - I'm Sitting on a Branch and I'm Fine (Sedím na konári a je mi dobre, 1989, Juraj JakubiskoJuraj JakubiskoJuraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
) - A Thousand-Year-Old Bee (Tisícročná včela, 1983, Juraj JakubiskoJuraj JakubiskoJuraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
) - She Grazed Horses on ConcreteShe Grazed Horses on ConcreteShe Grazed Horses on Concrete is a film which lays out serious topics that include a woman's capacity to hold her own in society, sexual mores, and abortion, and balances them with comedy and irony in proportions that instantly made it one of the biggest domestic blockbusters in Slovak cinema.A...
(Pásla kone na betóne, 1982, Štefan Uher) - Night RidersNight Riders (film)-Synopsis:Shortly after World War I and creation of the new Czechoslovak Republic, two war veterans are confronted in a small village in the north of Slovakia at the border with Poland. For one of the protagonists - Marek Orban , this village is his home. As it is isolated and lacks job...
(Noční jazdci, 1981, Martin Hollý) - I Love, You Love (Ja milujem, ty miluješ, 1980/1988, Dušan Hanák)
- Rosy DreamsRosy DreamsRosy Dreams is a 1977 Czechoslovak film. Despite its whimsical poetic style, it was the first Central European feature film that put the Romani community at the center stage in a realistic manner...
(Ružové sny, 1977, Dušan Hanák) - Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972, Dušan Hanák)
- Eden and AfterEden and AfterEden and After is a 1970 French-Czechoslovak drama film directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival.-Cast:* Catherine Jourdan - Violette* Lorraine Rainer - Marie-Eve* Sylvain Corthay - Jean-Pierre...
(Eden a potom, L'Eden et après, 1970, Alain Robbe-GrilletAlain Robbe-GrilletAlain Robbe-Grillet , was a French writer and filmmaker. He was, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon, one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend. Alain Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice...
) - Birds, Orphans and Fools (Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni, 1969, Juraj JakubiskoJuraj JakubiskoJuraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
) - 322 (322, 1969, Dušan Hanák)
- Deserters and Pilgrims (AKA The Deserters and the Nomads; Zbehovia a pútnici, 1968, Juraj JakubiskoJuraj JakubiskoJuraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots....
) - The Shop on Main StreetThe Shop on Main StreetThe Shop on Main Street is a 1965 Czechoslovak film about the Aryanization programme during World War II in the Slovak State....
(Obchod na korze, 1965, Ján KadárJán KadárJán Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street...
, Elmar KlosElmar KlosElmar Klos was a Czechoslovakian film director who collaborated for 17 years with Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with the film The Shop on Main Street.-References:...
) - The Sun in a NetThe Sun in a NetThe Sun in a Net is a 1963 film that became a key film in the development of Slovak and Czechoslovak cinema from the mandated Socialist-Realist filmmaking of the repressive 1950s towards the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave and socially critical or experimental films of the 1960s marked by a...
(Slnko v sieti, 1963, Štefan Uher) - Wolves' Lairs (Vlčie diery, 1948, Paľo Bielik)
- The Earth Sings (Zem spieva, 1933, Karol Plicka)
- JánošíkJánošík (1921 film)Jánošík is a Slovak black-and-white silent film from 1921. It relates the popular legend of the highwayman Juraj Jánošík. It shows the filmmakers' experience with early American movies in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, and in sequences inspired by Westerns...
(1921, Jaroslav Jerry Siakeľ)
Directors
|
Juraj Jakubisko Juraj Jakubisko is a Slovak film director. In his movies he managed to catch life's most beautiful colors, unhinge the poetry behind the ordinary and to be ahead of his time without forgetting his roots.... Ján Kadár Ján Kadár was a Slovak film writer and director. As a filmmaker, he worked in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with Elmar Klos. The two became best known for their Oscar-winning The Shop on Main Street... |
Martin Šulík Martin Šulík is a Slovak film director. He studied film directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava from which he graduated in 1986... Štefan Uher Štefan Uher was a Slovak film director, one of the founders of the "Czechoslovak New Wave".... Dušan Trančík Dušan Trančík is a Czech film director and screenwriter. He directed 22 films between 1968 and 1993. His 1991 film When the Stars Were Red was entered into the 41st Berlin International Film Festival.-External links:... |
Actors and actresses
- Michal DočolomanskýMichal DočolomanskýMichal Dočolomanský was a Slovak actor. He performed in more than forty films between 1962 and 2007.-Selected filmography:- External links :...
- Jozef KronerJozef KronerJozef Kroner was a Slovak actor. His brother Ľudovít Kroner, daughter Zuzana Kronerová, and wife Terézia Hurbanová-Kronerová were actors, too. He starred in the Oscar-winning film The Shop on Main Street, and in more than 50 other Slovak films, as well as in several Czech, Bulgarian and Hungarian...
- Marian LabudaMarián LabudaMarián Labuda is a Slovak actor.In 1964 he graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava . He became member of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava. In 1967 he moved to the theatre Divadlo na Korze in the same city. Following its closure in 1971 he joined Nová scéna in Bratislava...
- Táňa PauhofováTána Pauhofová- Biography :She was born in 13th August 1983, Bratislava in Czechoslovakia. She studied Gymnasium. In year 2001 studied Dramatic Arts in University of Musical Arts in Bratislava. She works in dubbing, commercials and she plays in theatre. She was Shooting Stars 2007 in European Film Promotion.-...
- Emília VášáryováEmília VášáryováEmília Vášáryová is a Slovak stage and screen actress, referred to as the First Lady of Slovak Theater. During her over five decades long career, she has received numerous awards including the Meritorious Artist , Alfréd Radok Award , Czech Lion Award Golden Globet Award , and most recently the...
- Magda Vášáryová