Cinema of Slovakia

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Slovak cinema is much less famous than the film heritage of the Czech Republic, its former partner in Czechoslovakia until the end of 1992. During the Czechoslovak period, the country suffered from being the smaller, less economically developed part of the federation with the Czech city of Prague as its economic and cultural centre. After the Velvet Revolution, the Slovak film industry has been dogged by lack of money for the country’s film industry, intensified by the country's small size (5 milion inhabitants).

Some 350 Slovak features films have been made in the country’s entire history. Despite this low output, Slovak directors have produced some notable cinematic works that have been well received by critics and, to a lesser extent, audiences. In recent years, these films have often been made by working (wholly or partly) with foreign production companies.

Slovak films encompass a range of themes and styles typical of European cinema. Yet there are a certain number of recurring themes that are visible in the majority of the important works. These include rural settings, folk traditions and carnival. Even in the field of experimental film-making, there is frequently a celebration of nature and tradition, as for example in Dušan Hanák's Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972). The percentage of comedies, sci-fi films and similar types of film has been very low.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Early 20th century 1.2 The 1960s 1.3 The 1970s and '80s 1.4 The 1990s 2 Questions over National Origin 3 Directors 4 Actors and actresses 5 Notable Films 6 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Early 20th century

The first Slovak full-length movie and one of the first full-length feature movies in the world was Jaroslav Siakeľ's Jánošík of 1921. It is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

[edit] The 1960s

Slovakia's feature film production industry had a relatively late start. Although there were isolated successful feature films from Slovakia leading up to the 1960s, the first Slovak film to make a major international impact was not produced until 1962 - Štefan Uher's Sunshine in a Net (Slnko v sieti).

The feature film industry slowly started to take off after the Second World War when the Communist Party, which valued the propaganda potential of cinema, took power in Czechoslovakia. For a brief period at the beginning of the Stalinist era, the state had not yet gained full control, allowing one or two interesting films to be made in the Central European countries, including Wolf Hole (Vlčie diery, 1948) in Slovakia.

Within a few years, though, film production was heavily controlled by the state and films were not allowed to undermine Stalinism. Psychologising was frowned upon and characters became cardboard cut-outs subservient to political ideals. The resulting films were neither popular nor critically acclaimed. Across the region, there was a recognition that for an active and popular film industry to exist, film-makers should be given more control of production towards the end of the 1950s this process accelerated.

As in neighbouring countries, the early 1960s saw the fruition of this policy, which mixed powerfully with external cinematic influences such as Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave to produce Slovakia's first international film successes. Uher's Sunshine in a Net is frequently thought of as an aesthetic precursor to the Czechoslovak New Wave, which emerged over the following years. It's surrealist style and anti-establishment message caused it to be harshly criticized by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia.

Another important work from this time was Peter Solan's The Boxer and Death (Boxer a smrt, 1962), which was set in a Nazi concentration camp and directly tackled the Holocaust. The Boxer and Death was one of a series of Czechoslovak films from the 1960s that looked back at the moral dilemmas of ordinary people caught up in the Second World War and encouraged viewers to re-evaluate their responses to the war. Many of these films chose the Holocaust as their focus, and Slovak director Ján Kadár, co-directing with frequent collaborator Elmar Klos, achieved a major international success in this genre with the Czech-produced, Slovak-language The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze), which won a Special Mention when it played at the Cannes Film Festival in 1965 and went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film the following year. The Czech feature The Cremator (Spalovač mrtvol, 1968), Slovak-born Juraj Herz's grotesque black comedy about the Final Solution, is a cult film in both the Czech and Slovak republics and has an increasing reputation internationally. Herz is only one of a very few concentration camp survivors to have gone on to direct films about their experiences.

[edit] The 1970s and '80s

Following the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, firm state control was regained over the film industry. Almost all the major Slovak directors initially found it more difficult to work. Despite this, state control was generally far greater in Prague than it was in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, and in the 1970s some directors made films in Slovakia to avoid restrictions on film-making in the Czech half of the federation, including Juraj Herz (returning to his native country) and Jan Švankmajer. The more relaxed conditions became apparent in the 1980s when Slovakia had perhaps its most successful film-making period, and several directors who had not been able to work at all (such as Jakubisko) or only at times (such as Hanák) returned with important and mature works. Highlights from this period include Hanák’s I Love, You Love (Ja milujem, ty miluješ, 1989), Jakubisko's Thousand-Year-Old Bee (Tisícročná včela, 1983), Uher's A Ticket to Heaven (Pásla kone na betóne, 1982), Martin Hollý's Signum Laudis (1980), , Zoro Záhon's The Assistant (Pomocník, 1982) and Dušan Repoš's A Fountain for Susan (Fontána pre Zuzanu, 1986). This streak of successful film-making is all the more remarkable given that in other Communist countries the 1980s, especially the late '80s, were generally speaking a fallow time, particularly in the Czech Republic.

[edit] The 1990s

In contrast to the 1980s, the decade following 1990 was one of the worst in the history of Slovak cinema. Only a few full-length feature films were produced in this period (36 films with major Slovak participation between 1992 and 2002) and interest in domestic films practically vanished. The reasons for this were a desperate lack of money in Slovak culture as a result of the transformation of Slovakia's economy following the Velvet Revolution, the decrease in potential audience by the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993, and a sharp decrease in the previous high subsidies for culture and film provided by the Communist government. Ironically, the work of the only major Slovak director to emerge in this period, Martin Šulík, has been more popular internationally, and particularly in the Czech Republic and Poland, than in his native country.

Also, under Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar, the Koliba film studios were privatized in 1995 and within two years Mečiar's children are said to have held an 80% stake in the company. Allegations of asset-stripping and fraud dogged the company, and after Mečiar was voted out of office in 1998 the Ministry of Culture sued Koliba to recover money given to make feature films that were not produced, one of a number of suits launched by the post-Mečiar government in relation to companies that had been privatized by Mečiar. The legal action dragged on through the early 2000s and did nothing to clarify the position of Koliba, effectively prolonging the stagnation and leaving the studios dilapidated and in disrepair.

Nevertheless, the Slovak film industry did not completely grind to a halt and important post-Communist era films include Šulík's Everything I Like (Všetko čo mam rád, 1992), and The Garden (Záhrada, 1995), both lyrical films that depict tense father-son relationships, and Vlado Balco's Rivers of Babylon (1998), which is sometimes interpreted as a critical allegory of Mečiar's rise to power. Juraj Jakubisko, working in Prague, made An Ambiguous Report about the End of the World (Nejasná zpráva o konci světa, 1997), at the time the most expensive film ever made in the Czech Republic.

The cinematographer Martin Štrba has also been highly successful in this period, being respected in both the Czech and Slovak republics. He collaborates regularly with Martin Šulík and the Czech director Vladimír Michálek and has also worked with the Czech New Wave icon Věra Chytilová.

In 1999, an international film festival was started in Bratislava in an attempt to try and foster a better environment for making feature films and larger appreciation among Slovak audiences.

[edit] Questions over National Origin

Given that in the periods 1918-1938 and 1944-1992 Slovakia did not exist as an independent country, there has been some controversy over the naming of certain films as Slovak. Although the Czech and Slovak halves of Czechoslovakia each had separate languages, they were close enough for film talent to move freely between the two republics. As a result, during the Czechoslovak period – and even after it – a number of Slovak directors made Czech-language films in Prague, including Juraj Herz and Juraj Jakubisko.

Particularly intense debate has arisen around the Oscar-winning Shop on the High Street, which was jointly directed by one Budapest-born Slovak director (Kadár) and one Czech director (Klos), based on a novel by a Czech-born Jew who grew up in Slovakia, produced and financed by a Czech production company and shot on location in Slovakia in the Slovak language. Czechs generally consider the film to be "Czech" (and not Slovak) on the basis of the film's financing; Slovaks generally consider the film to be Slovak on the basis of its language and themes.

[edit] Directors

• Vlado Bahna
• Stanislav Barabáš
• Paľo Bielik
• Eduard Grečner
• Dušan Hanák
• Elo Havetta
• Juraj Herz
• Martin Hollý
• Juraj Jakubisko
• Ján Kadár
• Otakar Krivánek
• Viktor Kubal
• Leopold Lahola
• Andrej Lettrich
• Miroslav Luther
• Juraj Nvota
• Stanislav Párnický
• Peter Solan
• Martin Šulík
• Štefan Semjan
• Štefan Uher
• Martin Ťapák
• Dušan Trančík
• Jozef Zachar
• Ján Zeman

[edit] Actors and actresses

• Michal Dočolomanský
• Magda Vášáryová
• Jozef Kroner
• Marian Labuda

[edit] Notable Films

• The Garden (Záhrada, 1995, Martin Šulík)
• Paper Heads (Papierové hlavy, 1995, Dušan Hanák)
• Sitting On A Branch I Am Fine (Sedím na konári a je mi dobre, 1989, Juraj Jakubisko)
• Night Riders (Noční jazdci , 1981, Martin Hollý)
• Eden And Afterwards (Eden a potom, 1970, Alain Robbe-Grillet)

[edit] External links

• Slovak Film Institute