"We place great emphasis on presenting new Slovak and co-production titles and are very pleased with the great interest of creators. This year too, the quality of our cinematography is surprising, both in terms of form and content. At Cinematik, we will present the most valuable films of domestic cinematography this year," says Peter Konečný, a member of the programming team.
The large selection of premiere screenings at this year's Cinematik will open on the first day of the festival with the highly anticipated drama Father by director Tereza Nvotová, which arrives directly from the Venice Festival. The film is inspired by real events in Slovakia, but also abroad, and offers the story of a father who makes a tragic mistake. He then bears the consequences not only in his relationship with his wife, friendships and work relationships, in court proceedings, but especially and perhaps first of all in his relationship with himself. Milan Ondrík and Dominika Morávková will play the lead roles, bringing a perhaps surprising story of love and marital partnership tested by perhaps the toughest test.
Other premieres of important domestic and co-production film news await festival visitors in the What the House Gave section, dedicated to the latest Slovak cinematography. In the Slovak premiere, Cinematik will also present, with the participation of the creators, the Slovak-Czech-Italian title Karavan, which had its world premiere at the prestigious Cannes. Karavan will bring to domestic cinema a theme that has never been depicted in such an unconventional form. It is the story of a woman who is bound by immense love for her child. However, this love is also a great burden for her. "The theme of the film Caravan is deeply personal for me. My son was born with Down syndrome and gradually developed autism. However, Caravan is not personal at the level of a specific story - what is personal about it is the desire to escape, the need to rebel against the role of the mother of a child with a disability. I wanted to make a film that, despite the difficult subject, is hopeful, full of lightness and humor - albeit bittersweet," says director Zuzana Kirchnerová about the film.
Cinematik will also present an exclusive premiere of the Slovak-Czech co-production film by director Katarína Gramatová, which had its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Heaven is Above, I Am in the Valley. Viewers can expect a captivating, intimate coming-of-age drama inspired by real events from the so-called "hungry" Slovak valleys. The film tells the story of fifteen-year-old Enrique, who grows up with his grandmother in a forgotten Slovak village. His mother Martina works far away in the city and rarely comes home. Summer days pass slowly: riding on babettes, small extravaganzas with friends, occasional tasks from his mother. But something is changing beneath the surface. Enrique begins to realize that his mother's demands are not as innocent as they seemed. Rumors are circulating in the village. His certainty about his mother is crumbling - he discovers that the image he created of her may have been just an illusion.
The Cinematika program also features the fresh debut of Czech director and screenwriter of Vietnamese origin Dužan Duong, entitled Summer School 2001. Seventeen-year-old Kien with a bright red hairstyle returns to his family at the market in Cheb after ten years in Vietnam. Instead of a warm welcome, however, he is greeted by an estranged father, a worried mother and a younger brother who gives him nothing. Along with ironing Pokémon on T-shirts, practicing Czech and dating by the lake, a secret begins to surface, the revelation of which will turn life at the market upside down. Told with ease and humor, director Dužan Duong's film brings an authentic look at the community through the eyes of the first Vietnamese generation who grew up in the Czech Republic.
The festival's programming team has also included among the domestic previews the unforgettable puppet film Tales from the Magic Garden, a Czech-Slovak-Slovenian-French co-production, which has already been presented at the important Annecy and Berlinale festivals. Little Zuzanka comes with her two siblings to visit her recently widowed and sad grandfather. In the evening before bedtime, Zuzanka decides to conjure up fairy tales from her grandmother's straw hat for the younger Tomík from randomly selected words - exactly as their beloved grandmother used to tell them. This intelligent family film was made by four directors: David Súkup, Patrik Pašš, Leon Vidmar and Jean-Claude Rozec.
The Cinematik.doc competition section dedicated to the latest documentary work will feature up to seven titles. The winner of the 59th Karlovy Vary Festival, Radeji zešílet v divočine by Slovak director Miro Rem, will also have its exclusive Slovak premiere at Cinematik. The film loosely develops the motif of the book of the same name by Aleš Palán and Jan Šibík about the loners of Šumava. The film's guides are twins František and Ondřej Klišíkovci - eternal children living in a magical world with their pets. Together, they share every day, every routine, every thought. Outwardly, they seem like mirrors of each other, but inside, they are two completely different souls. Years of inseparable coexistence are starting to get over their heads. Franta dreams of escape, of flying, of the world beyond the walls that bind him. Ondra remains rooted in what he knows intimately. Is it even possible to escape when the whole world wears your own face?
The rich selection of premieres at this year's Cinematik IFF will be complemented by the film Unpaid Time Off – a creative new feature by director Paula Ďurinová, which has already been presented at the FIDMarseille and Karlovy Vary festivals. Some crises do not come suddenly – we live them quietly, for a long time and without a break. Unpaid Time Off is a film about the need to stop. In it, director Paula Ďurinová transforms a personal experience of burnout into collective sharing and explores how exhaustion is not only experienced, but also shaped under the pressure of constant performance. The intimate narrative set in Berlin combines voice messages, archives and recordings from group meetings into a collage that reveals a system where getting sick means failing. “After my own experience of burnout, I felt a strong need to understand what had happened to me. I gradually began to engage with the critique of the privatization of mental health and joined a Berlin collective that focused on the political dimensions of anxiety in late capitalism. I wanted to create a space for stopping – a place where it is possible to collectively process individual experiences and uncover their systemic causes,” says director Ďurinová.
However, visitors to Cinematik should definitely not miss the opportunity to be the first in Slovakia to see the latest film by the award-winning Pavol Barabáš, Everyone Needs a Tribe. What unites us as people? What makes us happy and satisfied? What fills us with meaning and purpose? The answer is one word: community. It is our natural need, which is deeply rooted in us. It is our strength, which attracts us to family, friends and those who are similar to us and share the same values, interests and goals.
The festival program also includes a film essay, Chronicle, by director Martin Kollár. The film captures everyday stories and creates a collective portrait of contemporary reality – not only as a documentation of the present, but also as an archive for the future. Through images, it reveals absurd routines and strange habits, as well as our tendency to rely on systems that we also question.
The Cinematik.doc competition section will also present Zuzana Piussi's latest documentary film The Voice of the Forest, which opens up the topic of what a healthy forest actually needs. Likewise, Dušan Trančínek's stylized documentary-fiction project Akcia Monaco, presenting the most successful conspiracy operation of the Czechoslovak State Security (ŠtB) in the years 1948-1953, or Daniel Dluhý's sensitive debut Alenka and the Miracle from a Foreign Land - the true story of a young Roma girl Alenka, who did not give up and managed to defy the fate of thousands of Roma children in Slovakia.
In a special Slovak premiere, the 20th Cinematik will also present the discussed and highly anticipated Czech-Slovak documentary film The Great Patriotic Trip by director Robin Kvapil. Do you think the war in Ukraine is a hoax? That the media is lying about the death toll and the consequences of the "special military operation" in Ukraine? That was the call made by director Robin Kvapil, to which sixty people questioning the Russian invasion responded. Three of them, who describe themselves as "desolates" and supporters of Vladimir Putin, eventually went to the Donbas with the crew.
Accreditations for the 20th annual Cinematik International Film Festival are on sale on the official festival website www.cinematik.sk.
