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FESTIVALS Slovakia

Cinematik boasts a fresh batch of domestic and European films

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- Slovak film festival Cinematik will present recent offerings from domestic cinema as well as films from elsewhere in Europe

Cinematik boasts a fresh batch of domestic and European films

Cinematik is the youngest, but fastest-growing, international film festival in Slovakia. Situated in the spa town of Piešťany in west Slovakia, every September it boasts over 70 features, short films and documentaries focused on European and Slovak cinema. The ninth edition of the Cinematik International Film Festival will start on 10 September and will run until 15 September.

The main competition section, Meeting Point Europe, will present the most interesting European titles, according to 17 international film critics. Among those chosen is Veiko Õunpuu’s latest offering, Free Range [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, which asks the question of whether or not to succumb to the conformities of society. The Austrian-German Alpine western The Dark Valley [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, directed by Andreas Prochaska – who edited several of Michael Haneke’s features, among others – as well as Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s homage to giallo films, The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, have made it into the competition, along with Alain Guiraudie’s festival hit, Stranger by the Lake [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alain Guiraudie
film profile
]
.

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Another competition section, Cinematik.doc, caters for Slovak documentaries made in the last 12 months. Miro Remo, the director of the award-winning short documentary Arsy-Versy, will present his latest film, Comeback, as a Slovak premiere; the movie examines the integration of prisoners into normal life after years spent behind bars. Among the other titles competing are Danubestory (directed by Jana Čavojská and Vladimír Kampf); the animated documentary Felvidék – Caught in Between (directed by Vladislava Plančíková); The Edge – 4 Films About Marek Brezovský (directed by Patrik Lančarič), following the short yet intense life of the young artist; The Lyricist (directed by Arnold Kojnok); First Slovak Horror (directed by Róbert Slovák), tracing the tribulations involved in producing the first Slovak horror film, which, in the end, did not materialise; Footprints on the Ridge by prolific Slovak documentarist Pavol Barabáš; A Group Meeting (directed by Martin Šenc); and All My Children (directed by Ladislav Kaboš), a portrait of a charismatic priest who helps ex-convicts, drug addicts and homeless people.

Cinematik will also host the premiere of Children, the first fiction feature by Slovak documentarian Jaro Vojtek. This is an omnibus film following four stories that are all about the relationship between parents and their children, in the tradition of social realism. Jean-Luc Godard’s cinematic essay Goodbye to Language 3D [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, John Michael McDonagh’s pairing with Brendan Gleeson in the dark comedy Calvary [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: John Michael McDonagh
film profile
]
and Ivan Ikic’s hooligan drama Barbarians [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan Ikic
film profile
]
are among the titles rounding off the slate of films for the ninth edition of Cinematik.

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