Emerging Slovak filmmaker Terézia Halamová recently won the Cineuropa Work in Progress Award in Febiofest Bratislava’s Industry Days for her feature-length fiction debut, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf. Halamová has already enjoyed considerable success, with her short film Dog and Wolf having been picked for the Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema initiative (see the interview); in addition, it netted the Best Student Film and Best Short Film Awards at the annual Czech Lions event.

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Cineuropa talked to Halamová about exploring the emotionally charged world of male strippers across Central Europe, generational disillusionment, the fragile boundary between performed masculinity and vulnerability, and “hedonistic depression”.

Cineuropa: How did The Hour Between Dog and Wolf evolve as a project?
Terézia Halamová: We’ve been developing the feature for about three years. I first presented it at KVIFF Talents in Karlovy Vary. From the beginning, my producer, Natália Pavlove, of Other Stories, and I knew we wanted to make a feature set in this environment. During my studies at FAMU, I had the opportunity to make a short film, Dog and Wolf, as my graduation project, so we returned to the same world. It allowed us to test out certain aspects, like the tone, the central character and even potential casting, while making sure the short functioned as a standalone piece. The feature, however, expands the scope significantly, focusing on a group of male strippers on the road across Central Europe.

What drew you to this milieu?
At first, I thought this was a relic of the 1990s, but through my research, I discovered how present and active it still is. These performers travel across the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, playing sold-out shows all year round. What fascinates me is the contradiction. On one level, they perform a very constructed, almost stereotypical idea of masculinity, fulfilling female fantasies. But in reality, the experience is much more collective and emotional, both for the audience and for the performers. The men themselves have to be extremely open, sensitive and vulnerable. I’m interested in that tension, in how they navigate between performance and authenticity.

Is the film a social portrait of this subculture?
Not primarily. I’m not interested in making a documentary-style exploration of the industry. The setting functions more as a metaphor. The film is centred on the main character, Rudo, a 25-year-old man, and his inner development. For me, it’s a character-driven film shaped by emotional states, rather than external action.

You’ve described the project as having a strong generational layer. What does that mean in this context?
I see the movie as reflecting what I would call a kind of “hedonistic depression”. Our generation grows up with the sense that anything is possible and that there are endless options. At the same time, we are constantly chasing something new, something better, but that pursuit often leads to emptiness. Rudo embodies this condition. He lives in a state of excess and movement, but underneath that, there is a kind of void. The film follows his emotional trajectory as he gradually becomes more aware of it.

How are you approaching the visual and tonal structure of the movie?
The film is built on contrasts. On one hand, there is the artificial, stylised world of the performances, the clubs, the coloured lights and the kitsch aesthetic; on the other, there is a very raw, sobering reality: travelling between different places, daytime environments, fatigue... We alternate between these two visual modes. It’s important for me that the audience feels the exhaustion of that constant shifting between extremes.

Who is in your core creative team?
Dušan Husár is attached as the cinematographer: he worked on films such as Arvéd, A Sensitive Person and Year of the Widow. Many of the key collaborators are continuing their work from the short, including sound designer Anna Jesenská (Chica Checa) and production designer Stella Šonková (Victim, Little Thief – see the news).

The film deals with intimacy but avoids explicitness. Why was that important to you?
That came directly from the research. What surprised me is that this environment is built on suggestion, flirtation and tension, rather than explicit sexuality. There is always a certain distance. So, we are making a film about intimacy without any explicit sex scenes. That aligns with the thematic focus; it’s about emotional and psychological exposure, rather than physical explicitness.

How is the project structured in terms of production and financing?
It’s conceived as a Czech-Slovak project with potential Polish co-production. We already have support in place from the Czech side, including the Czech Audiovisual Fund and Czech Television, as well as development support from Creative Europe – MEDIA. We are currently working on securing Slovak funding. At the same time, we are exploring a Polish co-production option, since part of the story takes place there.

What is the current timeline?
We aim to shoot in autumn 2026, although that depends on finalising the financing. If everything aligns, post-production would follow into 2027, with a potential premiere the same year.

How do you see the film within the current regional landscape?
I think one of its strengths is that it focuses on young characters in a way that feels immediate and emotionally driven, while still being accessible to a broader audience. At the same time, we sometimes describe it, half-jokingly, as an “Eastern European Magic Mike”. But the key difference is that we’re not imitating a Western model; we are exploring how this phenomenon exists in a specific Central and Eastern European context, with all of its social and cultural nuances.