01/07/2025 - The seventh edition continues to spotlight the diversity and ambition of Slovak cinema, with a fresh line-up of emerging voices and genre-driven stories

The Pop Up Film Residency has announced the projects and filmmakers selected for the 2025 edition of Slovak Pop Up. This year’s programme, which attracted a record number of 20 applications, will support seven projects in total – five features and two shorts – through a series of residency sessions and individual consultations with international mentors.

Launched in 2019, Slovak Pop Up has become a key development platform for filmmakers working in Slovakia, supporting 27 projects to date, including six completed films. Two debut features developed through the initiative, Twentyseven by Gregor Valentovič and Flood by Martin Gonda, are currently in post-production and are expected to premiere between late 2025 and early 2026.

This year’s selection highlights a broad spectrum of voices and genres. Among the feature projects, Dreaming Differences by Kateřina Hroníková, produced by Nataša Jurčová Findrová, explores an unconventional love story shaped by contrasting relationships with sleep. 2,4 M, directed and produced by Mária Pinčíková and co-written with Marek Lečšák, is an absurdist road movie following two people who agree to be physically tied together for a year while crossing the USA as part of a radical performance-art piece. Meanwhile, The Fall, an English-language tragicomedy written by Patrik Pašš ml and Laura Siváková-Paššová, and produced by Juraj Krasnohorský, centres on two estranged elderly siblings reconnecting in a crumbling family mansion.

Several projects tackle urgent contemporary issues through genre storytelling. Teodor Kuhn’s Realities, his second feature, following By a Sharp Knife [+see also:
trailer
film profile], is a fairy-tale comedy of redemption that engages with the Slovak housing crisis, which is being produced by Nazarij Kľujev. A similarly pressing theme drives This Is Our House, a black comedy written by Adam Pavlovič, a young screenwriter with international training who has recently returned to Slovakia.

In the short-film selection, #NoFilter by Roman Pivovarník and producer Barbara Janišová Feglová offers a hybrid cinematic portrait of a Bratislava teenager negotiating questions of authenticity in a world ruled by social media. Animation students Olívia Jánošíková and Marty Müller, who have already made waves on the festival circuit with their earlier shorts, return with Summer Lamb, a sci-fi romance about a scientist who travels back in time to the 19th century, produced by Müller himself.

The selected projects will be developed over three residency sessions in Bratislava between July and November 2025, each led by a dedicated international mentor: Philippe Barrière, Mert Dilek or Mmabatho Kau.

Commenting on the 2025 line-up, Pop Up Films CEO Matthieu Darras emphasised the programme’s inclusive vision. “Slovak Pop Up intends to accompany and support filmmakers active in Slovakia, and foster all the diversity of their practices and experiences,” he noted. “The selection, which was challenging to make, reflects the attention we pay to both emerging talents and more established ones.”

Alongside Slovak Pop Up, the broader Pop Up Film Residency Bratislava is hosting five international film residencies in 2025. German director Max Bungarten participated in a residency earlier this year to work on Bumper Cars, a queer coming-of-age drama set on the outskirts of Cologne. In April and May, the writing team of Ruddy-Williams Kabuiku and Nadya Todorova developed their crime-thriller series Erotic Lives of the Superheroes, produced by Eric Dupont and based on Marco Mancassola’s bestselling novel. The series will be pitched at Karlovy Vary’s Industry Days.

In July, South African filmmaker Dian Weys will arrive in Bratislava to develop Bergies, a real-time, 90-minute drama set during the forced eviction of more than 50 homeless people (see the interview with producer Émilie Dubois). The project follows the international success of Weys’ latest short, Vultures, which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May. That same month, Brazilian-British producer Luiza Paiva, a recent participant in the Emerging Producers programme and the Ji.hlava Documentary Festival, will also be in residence to work on her slate of fiction and documentary projects. Later in the year, Kazakh filmmaker Aizhana Kassymbek will take up a residency to develop 14.5, her third feature, after Fire (Busan 2021) and Medina (Tokyo 2023). The new film is a portrait of adolescence, focusing on a 14-year-old girl navigating the complexities of teenage life.

The Slovak Pop Up and Pop Up Film Residency Bratislava are organised by Pop Up Films sro and Tatino Films, under the direction of Matthieu Darras, Antonia Girardi and Ivana Huciková. More information is available here.

Here is the list of projects selected for Slovak Pop Up:

Dreaming Differences - Kateřina Hroníková
Writer: Kateřina Hroníková
Producer: Nataša Jurčová Findrová

Summer Lamb – Olívia Jánošíková, Marty Müller (short film)
Writers: Olívia Jánošíková, Marty Müller
Producer: Marty Müller

Realities - Teodor Kuhn
Writer: Teodor Kuhn
Producer: Nazarij Kľujev

The Fall
Writers: Patrik Pašš ml, Laura Siváková-Paššová
Producer: Juraj Krasnohorsky

This Is Our House
Writer: Adam Pavlovič

2,4 M - Mária Pinčíková
Writers: Mária Pinčíková, Marek Lečšák
Producer: Mária Pinčíková

#NoFilter – Roman Pivovarník (short film)
Writer: Roman Pivovarník
Producer: Barbara Janišová Feglová