07/07/2025 - After being a part of Karlovy Vary's Talent Pool initiative, the Slovak director returns to the festival to screen her short film as part of EFP's Future Frames

Terézia Halamová’s Dog and Wolf sees Rudo, a stripper in his mid-20s, indulge in a life of hedonism following the breakdown of his relationship. Amidst non-stop partying and very little sleep, memories fracture as memories of times past with his ex – and the promises that were broken – see Rudo begin to get lost within the gaps of reality. Alternating between relentless energy and a contemplative surrealism, Halamová’s film is a compelling character study which will screen at the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival as part of EFP's Future Frames. 

Slovakian-born director Halamová is currently finishing her MA at FAMU in Prague. Her 2020 short film Sing For Us won several awards on the festival circuit.

Cineuropa: Can you expand upon the origins of Dog and Wolf and its connections to the feature film that you’re working on, The Hour between Dog and Wolf?
Terézia Halamová: I’ve been developing the feature since 2022, when I was lucky enough to be part of KVIFF's Talents’ Feature Pool, where I was first given a platform, space, and support. We are currently at a stage of financing this feature, which isn’t easy and is a long process. In the meantime, I had to graduate from film school, so we agreed with our crew that it would actually be a great opportunity to work together and try to tell a story from the same environment as our feature. I’d like to emphasise that the feature and the short are two separate films, but thanks to this short we could explore our crew dynamics, find the main actors and non-actors, and develop the language and tone of the feature film. The short works with a love story, flashbacks and its primal moods are melancholy and nostalgia, while the feature focuses on the road movie aspects of the film, on the male stripper's group chemistry, and is overall a bigger portrait of our generation’s hedonistic depression and loneliness.

Did you do research into the world of male strippers? How important was it for you to avoid some of the cultural clichés that come with it?
Many people know nothing about the stripper milieu in our area, and this unfamiliarity is accompanied by prejudice. That's why I want to bring characters into the film that the viewer perceives as real people with their own stories, not just as cheap entertainers. I find the environment of male striptease to be a good metaphor for a film about a search for identity and an exploration of vanity, where we get to spend time with characters whose daily routine is changing costumes, pretending, and fulfilling other people’s fantasies. The casting process is based on the search for authentic personalities who can bring their authenticity to the film while responding to the work of experienced actors. My work with actors and non-actors is based on an organic blending of their energies so that the resulting scenes feel as natural and spontaneous as possible. As part of my research, I was in close contact with two big male striptease groups based in Prague and they were kind enough to let me interview and accompany them at their trainings and shows, and I spent equal time in the audience as I did backstage. While doing this, I also met Petr Dlugos, a male dancer, who we cast in the short film as Rudo's colleague and I found this cooperation so enriching, because not only was he helping us with the choreography (with the supervision of our choreographer Natálie Vacková), he also lent us costumes and brought a nice breath of improvisation to the scenes. 

How did you find Tomáš Čapek for your lead? He has this mix of outward toughness but there’s also a tangible vulnerability to him.
I am happy you felt this way about him, because that was exactly what we were looking for and tried to balance with Tomáš, who was extremely open and trusting during the shooting process, which is the most I could ask from any actor. Rudo is automatically objectified for his profession, but the priority for me is his emotional struggle. Rudo actively struggles with toxic masculinity, so we're not just portraying a character indulging in it. The characters of the male dancers are, on the one hand, very confident in their appearance and behaviour, but their profession requires an immense openness and vulnerability. I'm interested in how they balance this contradiction and how they are shaped by unfulfilled expectations and desires. 

What projects are you working on next, or are you focused solely on The Hour Between Dog and Wolf?
Most of my energy and time is occupied by working on the feature The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, but I am also writing two miniseries – Casting (written by Jan Černý, produced by Natalia Pavlove) and Labyrinth of Lost Souls (co-written by Josef Kokta, produced by Natalia Pavlove) and two more features. I have a ton of ideas and worlds to explore, so hopefully the process of making them will only get faster with time.