14/11/2024 - We talked to the Slovak filmmaker, whose documentary has already triumphed in Ji.hlava, about the challenges of filming the former leader of his country

Marek Šulík at the 2024 Ji.hlava IDFF (© Jan Hromadko)

In his documentary Ms. President [+see also:
film review
interview: Marek Šulík
film profile], Marek Šulík followed Zuzana Čaputová – Slovakia’s first female president. It started happily, but after her historic win, things went south rather quickly. Čaputová had to deal with hate, personal struggles and opponents who wanted her to fail, not to mention the pandemic and war in Ukraine. In 2023, she chose not to run for re-election. The film won the Best Film Award at the 28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, and is playing in the brand new non-fiction Doc@PÖFF competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (8-24 November). We talked to the filmmaker about his project.

Cineuropa: When you first started following Zuzana Čaputová, what were you hoping for? Another happy end, after that election?
Marek Šulík: I was hoping for a funny, happy or very human movie stemming from her political environment – full of positive people trying to help her fulfil her mission, full of absurd situations and funny mistakes, but also serious dilemmas. I believe that when the idea of the movie is born, its director doesn’t know exactly what it will be about. You just have a feeling, helping you overcome all the obstacles that follow. For me, it was the desire to capture informal human behaviour in the presidential palace. 

She talks about disproving the idea that “decency in politics becomes a weakness”. But it really has. What do you think about it, after this film?
What I think is basically written in Robert Fulghum’s book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. For example: “Play fair. Don’t hit people.” Our film shows we have big problems in the educational system in Slovakia. This question is relevant, because I believe decency is needed everywhere. However, it’s better to ask how we can defend ourselves against populism and not use the same weapons they do.

At one point, she mentions that the material “can be discarded.” What kind of agreement did you have? Was it different from other films, because she was so high-profile?
I would like to emphasise that the openness with which I was able to move with the camera in the presidential palace is unprecedented. I could be there basically at any time and the staff would be helpful in allowing me to accompany them to various events. Any restrictions I had were related to state secrets, classified information or private conversations. Zuzana Čaputová was also sensitive to our request to film her daughters.

Politicians need to control their image, after all. Why did you think she would make for a good protagonist, even putting aside her historical win?
I got over this concern only a few years ago. I didn’t perceive Zuzana as a politician, rather as a person who was shaped by her NGO work. For me, these are the people who have a sense of social responsibility. Zuzana accepted me because she felt it could be important for her citizens, but it’s also a manifestation of my complete naivety. I imagined working on it in exactly the same way as my previous films. 

We encountered the need for image control only when we were presenting the first version of the film. Zuzana was unhappy; to her, it showed a very narrow slice of reality, ignoring many of her activities. Basically, our two concepts collided, the president’s agenda and the story we managed to capture. It was an almost two-month long process, but we tried to be empathetic towards the president’s opinions and feelings. After all, I couldn’t have started this film without her permission. I’m sure that the inclusion of her comments in the second version didn’t change the theme, the idea, or the overall direction of the film.

You pay attention to some details that have to do with her being a woman: like these hateful comments calling her “the blond traitor,” or the uncomfortable shoes she takes off. Do you think there’s more pressure on female politicians also when it comes to how they look?
Definitely. I don’t remember if the media, people on social networks and competing politicians ever paid so much attention to the clothes, appearance, teeth or hair of any male politicians before. I can imagine that women feel more of this inner pressure. They don’t want to fail in a men’s world. Still, it has to be said that Zuzana Čaputová wasn’t only attacked by men, but also provoked irrational anger in women. I remember one woman challenging her to a fist fight in the ring.

Many celebrated female politicians decide to leave. It happened in Finland, New Zealand. After what happened now in the US, do you think it can ever change? Why do so many people hate women in power?
But many also decide to stay, like [president] Maia Sandu in Moldova. She realised the gravity of the situation her country was in and decided to continue. I don’t dispute the fact that we have a lot of prejudices in us, but the narrative in society is also shaped by the elites. They have the ability to encourage our positive or negative tendencies. I’ll put it simply: people can hate women in power because they’ve been told to hate them. A large part of the political elites in Slovakia is made up of populists. For them, creating an enemy, spreading hatred and lies are their basic work methods.