04/09/2019 - The Slovakian film festival will honour Portugal’s João Pedro Rodrigues with its Respect Award when it unspools from 10-15 September

One of the younger Slovakian international film festivals, Cinematik, will soon unspool for the 14th time in the spa town of Piešťany. The line-up traditionally includes the Meeting Point Europe section, which rounds up intriguing European productions from the 2018-2019 season, including Yorgos Lanthimos’ much-celebrated royal affair The Favourite [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], François Ozon’s latest drama By the Grace of God [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: François Ozon
film profile], the disarmingly absurd comedy Diamantino [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Sc…
film profile] by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, Sacha Polak’s Dirty God [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sacha Polak
film profile], Bertrant Bonello’s Cannes-premiered Zombi Child [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bertrand Bonello
film profile] and Julian Schnabel’s van Gogh drama starring Willem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Julian Schnabel
film profile].

Cinematik regularly hosts a competition for Slovakian documentaries in the Cinematik.doc section. The titles that will vie for the award this year are Tomáš Krupa’s award-winning intimate doc examining the taboo topic of death and assisted suicide, The Good Death [+see also:
trailer
interview: Tomáš Krupa
film profile]; Peter Kerekes’ BATAstories [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which revolves around the story of Tomáš Baťa but also that of modern global capitalism; Swedes from the Slum, in which Katarína Farkašová tracks the lives of three Roma children adopted in Sweden as they return to their homeland to visit their biological parents; and Erik Praus’ The Calling [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which respectfully observes “the life of monks but also shows the ostentatious beauty of the monastery”, among other movies. Domestic filmmaker Barbora Berezňáková will introduce her first feature-length project, Never Happened [+see also:
trailer
film profile], as a world premiere in this same section. She employs found-footage aesthetics as she tells the story of three friends from the 1990s whose lives and actions would come to be closely intertwined with the highest echelons of politics, a tale that resonates in this current, challenging political climate.

The In the House section will screen a selection of domestic features and short oeuvres by emerging talents, including the bittersweet love story by father-and-son team Víťo and Richard Staviarsky, Loli Paradicka [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marka Staviarska
film profile]; Teodor Kuhn’s family drama set against a political-thriller backdrop, By a Sharp Knife [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; and the shorts The Gleam of Delicate Irony, Poetika Anima, Neptune, Antiquary and Kid.

The most prolific Slovakian filmmaker at present, Peter Bebjak, will have his post-apocalyptic web-series The Spot projected on a big screen in the Free Zone section along with Lucia Kašová’s documentary Non-Believers, which follows a group of conspiracy-theory believers on a visit to the office of one of Slovakia’s main newspapers.

Furthermore, Cinematik is organising a retrospective of celebrated Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues, which will include his works Phantom [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Two Drifters [+see also:
trailer
film profile], To Die Like a Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], The Ornithologist [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: João Pedro Rodrigues
film profile] and The Last Time I Saw Macao [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Furthermore, a slew of recent Portuguese films will accompany the retrospective, among them Miguel Gomes’ Tabu [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Miguel Gomes
interview: Miguel Gomes
film profile], Pedro Cabeleira’s Damned Summer [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pedro Cabeleira
film profile] and Marco Martins’ Saint George [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Marco Martins
film profile].

The festival’s line-up also offers a wide variety of award-winning and thought-provoking European festival titles, such as Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Corneliu Porumboiu
film profile], Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Céline Sciamma
film profile], Fatih Akin’s The Golden Glove [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fatih Akin
interview: Jonas Dassler
film profile], Hlynur Pálmason’s A White, White Day [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hlynur Pálmason
film profile], and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s drama Young Ahmed [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile].

The 14^th edition of the International Film Festival Cinematik Piešťany runs from 10-15 September. The full line-up is available here.