17/03/2025 - The Slovakian producer underlines the documentary filmmaking process is often impossible to plan, requiring a lot of improvisation

At Super Film, where Monika Lošťáková has worked since 2017, she primarily produces documentary projects and minority co-productions. She also works at nutprodukcia, mainly focusing on preparing funding applications. Monika has participated in the IDFAcademy and IDFA Young Producers programmes, as well as the East West Talent Lab. Additionally, she is a programme coordinator at Visegrad Film Forum (since 2014), Febiofest Bratislava (since 2016), and the Four Elements Summer Film Festival (since 2019). An interview with her, now selected for the 2025 Emerging Producers programme (read her EP profile here).

Why do you produce documentaries? Do you see documentary cinema as an instrument of social and political change?
Monika Lošťáková: I not only enjoy making documentaries but also watching them. They are much closer to me than feature films and often offer much more creativity and depth. For me, as a producer, making documentaries is a challenge – the process is often impossible to plan, requiring a lot of improvisation. Documentaries are often financially undersized, leading to compromises that demand creativity and flexibility from producers, enhancing cohesion with the crew. In documentary production, unexpected problems can lead to unique opportunities, unlike feature films where such occurrences typically result in financial loss.

And last but not least, documentaries can also serve as a tool for influencing social change, a phenomenon that has been demonstrated numerous times in the past. However, feature films can also have a significant impact on society, sometimes even more intensely, as they are more popular and can reach a wider audience. This was evident in Slovakia, where feature films were successful in shaping societal perceptions.

How do you achieve and maintain work-life balance and foster overall well-being?
In the film industry, maintaining a work-life balance is extremely challenging, a fact I have been aware of for many years. It is common to juggle multiple roles simultaneously, like myself, being both a film producer and a festival organizer. While I acknowledge that this situation is less than ideal, I strive to maintain a balance between work, relaxation, and spending time with my cat. Within our company, we have adopted a more selective approach to project selection, avoiding weekend work and late-night hours whenever feasible.

Where do you find audiences for your films?
The work within our company is diverse, as is our audience, encompassing all age categories – from the youngest viewers targeted by the TV series and short films we have produced (for which my colleagues and I often organize creative workshops during screenings in cinemas or various alternative locations such as libraries, galleries), to youth and adult viewers who can access our work on TV, online, and in cinemas.

What projects do you have underway (including fiction films and other projects)?
Our company Super Film currently has two documentaries in post-production. Replanted, directed by Andrea Kalinová, was presented at the Docu Talents from the East in the summer of 2024, and tells the story of a Georgian spa that was transformed into a refugee camp. The other project is the Czech-Slovak film Virtual Girlfriends directed by Barbora Chalupová and co-produced with Czech company Helium film, which explores the Onlyfans phenomenon and is presented at the CPH:DOX Forum in March as part of the projects in post-production.

Additionally, we have three other documentaries in development. In My Head, an animated film by Veronika Kocourková, will address the issue of mental health and has been presented in March at Cartoon Movie in Bordeaux. Furthermore, there is a short film by director Lena Kušnieriková with the working title K+R= which tells the story of the trauma of a victim of sexual violence. Finally, there is a film about the Czech-Slovak queer community, Velvet Generation directed by Ivana Hucíková, being prepared by nutprodukcia in collaboration with producers Jakub Viktorín and Lukáš Kokeš.

In addition to these projects, we are preparing two animated films as minority co-productions with the Czech studio Krutart – one short and one feature-length. As minority co-producers, we are also involved in preparing a feature film called Luigi directed by Eliška Kovaříková and Adam Struhala, which will be a survival comedy set in Italy.

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EMERGING PRODUCERS is a leading promotional and educational project, which brings together talented European documentary film producers. The programme is organised and curated by the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival.

Deadline for applications to the EMERGING PRODUCERS 2026 edition is 31 March 2025.