14/09/2026 - The Bratislava-based development programme continues to support filmmakers across generations, formats and cinematic approaches, while welcoming three international residents in 2026

Attention Whores by Alica Bednáriková

The Pop Up Film Residency has announced the projects and filmmakers selected for the 2026 edition of Slovak Pop Up. This year’s programme, which attracted a record number of 20 applications – 15 feature films, including two documentaries, and five shorts, including one animated film – will support five feature-length projects, comprising three fiction films and two documentaries, through project consultations with international mentors.

Launched in 2019, Slovak Pop Up has become an important development platform for filmmakers working in Slovakia, supporting 34 projects to date, including six completed films. Among the initiative’s recent alumni is Flood by Martin Gonda, which was selected to represent Slovakia in the Best International Feature Film category at the Academy Awards (see the news) and went on to win several prizes at the Sun in a Net Awards. Other completed or upcoming projects developed through the programme include Cowgirl by Michal Blaško, due for theatrical release in October 2026 (see the news), and Inside by Dorota Vlnová, which is set for an international premiere in October.

This year’s selection brings together five feature-length projects exploring intimate relationships, adolescence, history and the global circulation of goods. Among the fiction projects, Attention Whores, the feature debut by Alica Bednáriková, follows 16-year-old best friends Johana and Marika, whose rivalry and hunger for attention turn into an increasingly dangerous game when they compete to seduce their new teacher. Bednáriková, whose short Liquid Bread was selected for La Cinef in Cannes, Future Frames and Clermont-Ferrand, has already explored the story in a short version made as her FAMU graduation film and subsequently developed the feature at La Résidence du Festival de Cannes.

The complicated boundary between care and power is at the heart of Part of the Family, the debut feature by Emília Ondriašová, adapted from a novel by Austrian-Slovak writer Susanne Gregor. The psychological drama follows Paulína, a Slovak live-in caregiver working for an Austrian family. What initially appears to be an arrangement beneficial to everyone gradually becomes a web of favours, expectations and sacrifices, as Paulína grows indispensable to her employer’s household while becoming increasingly absent from her own.

Meanwhile, Amigo by Martin Hnát turns to the final years of communist Czechoslovakia through an unexpected protagonist: a tracking dog serving with the Czechoslovak Border Guard. After Amigo accidentally causes the death of a would-be emigrant and subsequently refuses to obey orders, his handler, Marek, attempts to conceal the dog’s condition from his superiors. The effort gradually pushes the once-loyal border guard towards an unlikely friendship and eventually into conflict with the regime he serves. Set along the River Morava in the late 1980s, the black comedy approaches a familiar historical period through the absurd everyday existence of soldiers and civilians at the edge of the Iron Curtain.

The documentary selection includes The School of Life, the first solo feature-length documentary by Lena Kušnieriková (Hanging Without Walls). The film follows Monika, a talented Roma teenager from a segregated settlement who is given the opportunity to study at an elite secondary school in Bratislava. Filmed over several years, the project observes what happens when a carefully constructed path towards a different future meets the unpredictability of life. Ports, the debut feature-length documentary by Tereza Smetanová, expands the geographical scope of this year’s selection towards the vast infrastructure of the global economy. Observing ports as spaces where land and ocean, nature and industry, and local lives and global capital intersect, the film moves between gigantic ships, warehouses and containers and the less visible forms of life unfolding among them: children swimming, birds nesting and sailors stranded far from home.

The selected projects will benefit from project consultations with international mentors Emma Ancele (France), Sebastian Winkels (Germany) and Yaelle Kayam (Germany/Poland/Israel), taking place in Bratislava from 18-20 September. The programme continues Slovak Pop Up’s commitment to supporting filmmakers active in Slovakia across different generations, formats and cinematic approaches.

Alongside Slovak Pop Up, the broader Pop Up Film Residency Bratislava is organising three international film residencies in 2026. Brazilian writer-director Nina Kopko took part in a residency earlier this year to develop The Last Dog on Earth, her feature debut, with Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi serving as her mentor. The remaining two residencies are scheduled for September and October. Ethiopian producer Nahusenay Dereje will develop The Fortunate, a dark comedy exploring hypocrisy, addiction and the fragile pursuit of grace. Slovenian writer-director August Braatz will meanwhile work on We Are Still Screaming, an upcoming darkly comic road movie. Braatz, a filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and composer who graduated from AGRFT Ljubljana, has previously worked across fiction, documentary and experimental cinema, with his films screening internationally.

The Slovak Pop Up and Pop Up Film Residency Bratislava are organised by Pop Up Films sro and Tatino Films, under the direction of Matthieu Darras, Antonia Girardi and Ivana Hucíková. Slovak Pop Up is financially supported by the Slovak Audiovisual Fund.

Here is the list of projects selected for Slovak Pop Up:

Attention Whores - Alica Bednáriková
Producer: Jakub Viktorín

Amigo - Martin Hnát
Writer: Jan Slobodnik
Producer: Matej Sotník

The School of Life - Lena Kušnieriková
Producer: Anna Mach Rumanová

Part of the Family - Emília Ondriašová
Writer: Alžbeta Gertli
Producer: Jozef Štupák

Ports - Tereza Smetanová
Writer: Atila Urbančič
Producer: Anna Mach Rumanová