20/08/2026 - The Slovak filmmaker’s sophomore feature, a coming-of-age drama, follows a teenage horse rider whose faith in the adults around her unravels amid a rural land dispute

Following his acclaimed debut feature, Victim, which premiered in Venice’s Orizzonti section in 2022 and served as Slovakia’s official submission for the Oscars, and his Berlinale-selected miniseries Suspicion, Slovak director Michal Blaško is currently working on his sophomore feature, Cowgirl. While Victim explored systemic bias and media distortion in municipal and judicial spaces, Blaško’s new effort pivots towards an intimate psychological register, shifting the setting to the rural landscapes of northern Slovakia to probe moral ambiguity, societal complicity and the erosion of youthful idealism.

Written by Jakub Medvecký, who also penned Victim, Cowgirl centres on 14-year-old Barbora, a teenager raised by her widowed father, Ľuboš, a respected local police officer. Barbora’s life is anchored in “horse cutting”, a western-style equestrian competition requiring discipline, focus and deep emotional trust, and her connection with her horse, Indy. Her sense of security begins to collapse when her trainer and maternal figure Lucia becomes embroiled in a local land dispute involving a farmer close to Barbora’s father. As adult alliances fracture under legal and financial pressures, Barbora is forced to confront the disillusionment of learning that the adults she idolised are complicit in systems of silence and injustice. The project draws directly on Medvecký’s family background running a working ranch, enabling the movie to be an authentic portrayal of both equestrian sport and rural life.

Continuing his interest in pairing non-professional performers with seasoned actors, Blaško has cast debutante Ela Kastély in the lead role of Barbora. Chosen after an extensive nationwide search across Slovakia, Kastély brings real-life competitive horse-riding experience to the physical demands of the role. Actor Juraj Loj (Broken Voices) stars as Ľuboš, whose calm exterior masks growing internal conflict, while Juliána Brutovská (Caravan) portrays the trainer Lucia. Actor-director Peter Bebjak plays the local farmer embroiled in the dispute.

Cowgirl borrows from the iconography of Americana, ranch structures, dusty training arenas and open pastures, translating western genre tropes into a contemporary Central European coming-of-age story. Blaško has reteamed with cinematographer Adam Mach (Victim, Suspicion), who lenses the rural terrain of Liptov and Orava. Hungarian composer Ádám Balázs (Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light) crafted a score combining folk elements, ambient textures and subtle western inflections, while editor Wanda Kiss (Rise of the Raven) also forms part of the team. Production design is overseen by Stella Šonková (Victim), with Jan Šulcek (Restore Point) managing on-set sound. The film is currently in post-production, and the producers are aiming for an autumn 2026 premiere. The project won the Marché du Film Producers Network Award in the industry strand of the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (see the news).

Cowgirl is being produced by Jakub Viktorín for Slovakia’s nutprodukcia and Tomáš Hrubý for Czech outfit nutprodukce, in co-production with Gábor Osváth for Hungary’s Filmfabriq and Czech Television. The project has received backing from the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, the Czech Audiovisual Fund, the Hungarian National Film Institute, Eurimages and Creative Europe – MEDIA.