The share of Slovakian majority co-productions is on the rise
- We present an overview of Slovakian film production for 2018 by means of various facts and figures
Slovakian cinema managed to produce 33 feature-length films in 2018. While nine of them were sole domestic productions, ten were majority co-productions and 14 were minority co-productions.
In the fiction-film department, the Czech Republic was the usual co-producing partner for productions such as the dance film Backstage [+see also:
trailer
interview: Andrea Sedláčková
film profile] (helmed by Czech director Andrea Sedláčková); Intimate Enemy, a riff on the home-invasion thriller featuring a “smart house” as the central oppressor; and Laco Halama’s historical drama Dubček. Cellar [+see also:
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film profile] (read the news), starring Jean-Marc Barr, and The Interpreter [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Šulík
film profile] were, in addition to the Czech co-production, boarded by a partner from Russia and Austria, respectively. The Czech Republic dominates minority co-productions as well, including the fairy tale The Magic Quill; Doc Martin: Greatest Case, a feature-length spin-off of a TV series; the social horror Domestique [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adam Sedlák
film profile] by Adam Sedlák; Jan Švankmajer’s last feature film Insect [+see also:
film review
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interview: Jan Švankmajer
film profile]; Jakub Červenka’s Talks with T. G. Masaryk [+see also:
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film profile]; Beata Parkanová’s feature debut Moments [+see also:
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interview: Beata Parkanová
interview: Beata Parkanová
film profile]; Robert Sedláček’s historical drama Jan Palach [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]; the fairy tale The Secret of the Two-Headed Dragon; the historical drama Pardon [+see also:
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film profile] by Jan Jakub Kolski; Ondrej Trojan’s historical drama Toman [+see also:
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film profile]; the award-reaping Winter Flies [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olmo Omerzu
film profile] by Olmo Omerzu; and Radim Spacek’s Golden [+see also:
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film profile] Sting [+see also:
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film profile].
Out of the bulk of 33 feature projects, 14 films were documentaries, such as Tomas Krupa’s The Good Death [+see also:
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interview: Tomáš Krupa
film profile], Occupation 1968 [+see also:
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film profile], Marek Kuboš’s The Last Self-Portrait [+see also:
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interview: Marek Kuboš
film profile], the documentary minority co-production Circus Rwanda [+see also:
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film profile] by Michal Varga, and My Unknown Soldier [+see also:
film review
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film profile] directed by Anna Kryvenko. Last year, two animated projects were completed: the Czech-Slovak animated film Parralel Movie, by animator and director Matyas Brych, and the animated family comedy The Websters by Katarína Kerekesová, a Slovakian-Polish co-production.
Five feature films completed last year did not get domestic theatrical distribution: The Spider, a portrait of controversial Slovakian mountaineer Pavel Pochylý; the student film Peter Breiner’s Elementary School of Art; Summit Attraction, a biopic about another Slovakian mountaineer Peter Hámor; Swedes from the Slum, a documentary about Roma children who returned to Slovakia from Sweden; and Ego: Precedent, a documentary about the making of the first solo album by a domestic rapper.
One of the largest domestic co-producers turned out to be Radio and Television Slovakia, which worked on a total of 23 feature projects, of which 11 were fiction or documentary films, and one was an animated project, The Websters (see the news).
The Slovak Audiovisual Fund (AVF) distributed €10,714,807 to support domestic audiovisual culture in 2018. 75.96% of the funding was allocated to fiction, documentary, animated and student projects and minority co-productions. Out of 523 applications in 2018, the AVF supported 333 of them.
Among the projects that received the highest funding were political thriller AMNESTY (€800,000); the historical drama The Maid (€616,500), a Slovakian project revolving around female homosexuality; Peter Bebjak’s Auschwitz drama The Report (€500,000, to a project which received a total of €775,000 – see the news); Juraj Jakubisko’s Lady Winter 2, the sequel to the fairy tale Lady Winter (€500,000; the project received a total of €1,050,000); György Kristóf’s dystopian dance thriller Bunker (€500,000 - read the news), Martin Šulík’s dramedy Man with Rabbit Ears (€450,000 - read the news), Zdeněk Jirásky’s Kryštof II. (€400,000), Anaesthesia (€350,000), Little Big Detectives (€300,000) and Juraj Bohuš’s Stand Up (€150,000 - read the news).
In terms of Slovakian minority co-productions, the Czech projects receiving support included the animated film My Sunny Maad [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michaela Pavlátová
film profile] (€145,000), directed by Michaela Pavlátová, about a Czech woman married to an Afghan man; the revenge dramedy Old-Timers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Dušek, Ondřej Provaz…
film profile] (€130,000); and Petr Zelenka’s provocative dramedy Droneman [+see also:
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interview: Petr Zelenka
film profile].
Slovakian projects that received Creative Europe MEDIA programme backing are the time-lapse documentary The Five Year Plan (Punkchart Films); André Bonzel’s documentary drama Flickering Ghosts of Love Gone By (Artichoke) constructed out of a collection of more than 200 hours of family films from the 1900s to the end of the 20th century; and Michal Blaško’s Victim [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michal Blaško
film profile]. A slate funding development grant of €125,000 went to production company BFilm for the projects Once There Was a Sea, Weirdo in the Underground, The American Dream and The End.
In 2018, 16 Slovakian projects applied for Eurimages support, and six of them were successful: Ivan Ostrochovský’s long-awaited sophomore feature, Servants [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan Ostrochovský
film profile]; a Czech-French-Belgian-Slovakian co-production of the animated fable Even Mice Belong to Heaven; Jan Jakub Kolski’s Pardon; Martin Dušek and Ondřej Provazník’s dramedy Old-Timers (the Czech Republic and Slovakia co-produced the film, which premiered at the 54th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival); the Slovak-French co-production (a Slovakian majority production) Flickering Ghosts of Love Gone By, a love letter to cinema; and Mátyás Prikler’s sophomore feature Power [+see also:
film review
film profile], in which the accidental killing of an innocent person by a well-established politician leads to the exposure of the hidden machinery of political power within a democracy.
2017 was a record-breaking year for domestic cinema (read the news), reaching a peak at 1,431,290 admissions. The numbers dropped considerably in 2018 to 250,984 (the 2012-2017 average was 434,288), although the annual tendency is mostly rising.
The number of Slovakian majority co-productions is also soaring compared to previous years.
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