Slovak filmmaker Martin Gonda makes his feature debut with Flood, a coming-of-age drama rooted in a little-known episode of Czechoslovak history. Set in the early 1980s in the Starina valley of present-day north-eastern Slovakia, the film revisits the compulsory evacuation of seven predominantly Rusyn villages, which were subsequently demolished to make way for a drinking-water reservoir. Through 15-year-old Mara and her widowed father, Gonda brings the upheaval into the intimate sphere of a family divided between the desire to leave and an attachment to ancestral land.

Following the film’s selection as Slovakia’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (see the news), Cineuropa spoke to Gonda about his childhood memories of the now-vanished settlements, the extensive research behind the screenplay and the generational conflict that lent the story its dramatic focus.

Cineuropa: You first encountered the Starina valley as a child, when you cycled through a landscape marked by the traces of vanished villages. How did returning as a filmmaker change your understanding of that place?
Martin Gonda: I spent my summers in the neighbouring Ulič valley, and cycled around Starina with my father and brother. My dad told us that seven predominantly Rusyn villages had once stood there. As a boy, I saw an empty landscape, but it contained small signs of the life that had existed: roads, wayside crosses and orchards still growing in the forest. It fascinated me and always suggested an approaching “end of the world”. When I returned and met former residents, their families, construction workers and officials who had persuaded people to sell their property, the perspective changed. It was still a world ending, but now I understood that the people knew it was ending. The question became what they would take with them, what they could preserve and what they would have to let disappear.

The protagonist, Mara, wants to leave, whereas her father cannot imagine abandoning the land. How did this generational conflict become the dramatic key to the film?
We spent more than three years researching the story and accumulated an enormous amount of material. For a while, the movie could have become a mosaic. Then we spoke to people who had been 15 or 16 at the time, and the generational conflict became very clear. Many young people were pleased when they heard they would be relocated. At last, they could leave what they called the end of the world and move somewhere with schools, shops and prospects.

For older people, it was the opposite: their parents or grandparents had built those houses. One former resident told us that the homes had been destroyed and rebuilt after two world wars. Then peace arrived, and this time, they disappeared for good. Mara and her father allowed us to make a large historical event intimate through two people whose desires pull them in opposite directions.

Although Flood is a period drama, it eschews the polished, nostalgic look often associated with historical films. How did you develop its visual language and the performances?
I wanted us to prove to ourselves that we could make a straightforward film before trying to break every rule. Its immediacy probably stems from the performers and from the way we worked with them. Many were non-professionals, and I adapted the staging to movements and reactions that felt natural to them. The young actors did not receive the screenplay. We spent about three months rehearsing scene by scene so that they would understand the context without fixing every response in advance. The essential thing was trust. We agreed on boundaries, and they could stop whenever something felt wrong. With cinematographer Oliver Záhlava, the principle was equally simple: the film and the story came first. The camera had to remain functional and close to the characters, rather than forcing them into a beautiful composition.

The movie is being presented as a landmark work for Rusyn-language cinema. What responsibility did you feel towards the community, and how have Rusyn audiences responded?
I am slightly uncomfortable with claims about it being the “first” because the film was never made to win that distinction. For me, using Rusyn was non-negotiable; it was a matter of respect. It also meant casting people who understood the small cultural nuances from within.

The response has been very warm. There were discussions about dialect, which I expected, and some people remembered events differently. That is entirely legitimate. The strongest confirmation came at screenings in eastern Slovakia and at a gathering in Ruské, where former residents and their descendants meet each year. People said they finally felt seen and heard. Some left the cinema crying. You realise that the film can reopen something – something they thought they had settled 40 years ago.

Flood is now Slovakia's Oscar submission. How are you approaching that new stage in the film's life?
I am very happy, especially because the Rusyn language and culture can now potentially be introduced across the Atlantic. More broadly, I think of the film as a small fragment added to collective memory. Starina is part of our history, yet even many Slovaks knew nothing about it. If a few more people now know what happened there, then spending six years making the film was worthwhile.