04/12/2025 - Martin Gonda’s feature debut combines a historical account of forced communist-era resettlement with a coming-of-age story about uprootedness

Slovak director Martin Gonda, a representative of the youngest generation of filmmakers, makes his feature debut with Flood, which recently received the SIGNIS Award for Best Film in the Official International Competition at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival. The project had earlier secured the main work-in-progress prize at Febiofest Bratislava Industry Days in 2021 (see the report). While Gonda’s Cinéfondation-selected short Pura Vida portrayed adolescence shaped by external pressures within a provincial industrial landscape, Flood extends these concerns into a historical and minority context. It is being released in Slovakia on 4 December by Continental Film, before the same company handles the theatrical distribution in the Czech Republic on 5 February 2026.

Set in the early 1980s in eastern Czechoslovakia, the film follows 15-year-old Mara (Sára Chripáková), who lives with her widowed father, Alexander (Jozef Pantlikáš), in the Ruthenian village of Ruské. The settlement is slated for demolition owing to the construction of the Starina drinking-water reservoir. Mara dreams of studying aviation in the city, while her father expects her to remain tied to the family’s land. As the state advances its plans, the community faces compulsory relocation. What begins as a coming-of-age story gradually shifts into an examination of organised displacement affecting an East Slavic minority rooted in the Eastern Carpathians.

The filmmakers centre the story on Mara’s perspective. Her ambitions conflict with her father’s expectation that she will assume responsibility for the homestead, and this divide deepens further when she does indeed begin aviation studies in the city, an unusual path for a girl of that era and one that represented a departure from her rural background. Her plans are further complicated when her father becomes housebound following a heart attack, forcing her into a caregiving role she had hoped to avoid.

Flood aligns with emerging tendencies in contemporary Slovak cinema, particularly that being made by the youngest generation, as seen in works such as Katarína Gramatová’s Promise, I’ll Be Fine [+see also:
film review
film profile], which signal a generational shift away from established domestic conventions. Gonda employs a coming-of-age framework within a historical narrative shaped by intergenerational conflict. He also departs from the dominant local approaches to communist-era stories, which often rely on nostalgia or depictions of oppression. Oliver Záhlava’s cinematography avoids the stylisation typically associated with period films, opting instead for a more naturalistic depiction.

Mara’s pursuit of a career in a male-dominated field challenges period gender norms, yet her identity remains intertwined with the Ruthenian community. She navigates the space between rural origins and urban aspirations, between traditional obligations and self-directed change. The film is wedged between two types of uprootedness: one forced upon the characters by the state owing to the transformational changes in the region, and another chosen by individuals seeking new lives beyond established conventions.

Flood positions Gonda within a cohort of emerging Central European directors whose work engages with the social history of less-explored national events through character-driven storytelling. The film’s thematic orientation and aesthetic economy suggest further visibility on the festival circuit is likely, particularly within programmes dedicated to regional cinema, minority histories and new perspectives on the socialist past.

Flood was produced by Silverart (Slovakia), and co-produced by Harine Films (Poland), Cineart TV Prague (Czech Republic) and The Y-House (Belgium).