It's Christmas, and children at an orphanage in Maliszewo receive a computer that was given to them by another orphan who used to live there many years ago. During the night, the computer awakes itself and tells the children a story that will happen in 25 years...
A story of a young student of medicine, who arrives in a small mountain village after being accused for carrying out illegal abortion. The film reflects the moral decline of the society, where stealing in secret and making compromises against one's beliefs make up mundane reality. The filmmakers went to perhaps the furthest possible limits in terms of allowed social criticism in the 1980s. The negative picture is enhanced by its rural setting, since the Slovak village had been traditionally associated with strict morals and conservative values.
The film consists of two parts: “Insomnia” and “Departure”. We shall meet Lev Tolstoy in the final years of his life at Yasnaya Polyana. We shall see him surrounded by his family, friends, acquaintances and absolute strangers who were coming to the great man and artist from all over the world. We shall hear “the voice of his thoughts”. In his sleepless nights, we shall follow his memory of the happy youthful years and the crucial, hard ones. We shall witness Tolstoy’s tragic departure from Yasnaya Polyana and his death at an obscure little station of Astapovo.
A raw and telling portrait of a people left behind by the modern world, inspired by the work of photographer Martin Martinček - whose pictures of the inhabitants of the Liptov region in central Slovakia, encompassed by the Tatra mountains, distilled entire lifetimes into luminous and intransient images. Dušan Hanák's continuation of these photographs takes the shape of a poetic visual essay, capturing more comprehensive vignettes of their isolate human experiences.
Jakub, a dreamer and budding magician, juggles between parcels and services rendered to the villagers. His eyes cross that of the beautiful gypsy Jolanka. Together, they will try to live a first and big love, despite the pressure of their respective communities.
Small Yozko, who lives with his mother, dreams of a real father, whose ideal is embodied in a tractor motorcyclist on Formula nickname. However, his mother perceives cheerful cool formula, finding it, like many villagers, frivolous. Friendship Formula fills the boy his father's absence, and Yozko increasingly tied to his friend. Suddenly received a telegram from the actual Yozko father, his mother will have to take a difficult decision, but life itself makes adjustments ...
The drama called I Love, You Love was made in 1980 but because of the absurd ideological ban, the film entered cinemas nine years later. Pišta is an unmarried man who works at a freight wagon which carries letters and parcels. Alcohol helps him to overcome his handicap of being short and not good-looking. He wishes he had a woman, but the woman he really wants, ageing Viera who reloads the cargoes, has a soft spot for another man. So, Pišta has nobody and nothing, except for senile mother who sometimes fails to recognize him. The film received Silver Bear for Best Director at the International Film Festival in Berlin.
Juraj Jakubisko's first feature film after a forced nine-year-long break is a story about an unconventional man, Jozef Matúš. He arrives to a small village in eastern Slovakia to settle down and start a family. He is ready to subordinate everything to his goal. It all starts with stealing building material and ends with him disregarding those close to him to a point where his ambitions are turning against him. Build a House, Plant a Tree is a viewer-friendly film with a plot resembling a western, including several attractive action sequences.
A communist journalist from Prague is sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp.
A beautiful princess born in a faraway kingdom is destined by a terrible curse to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep that can only be awakened by true love's first kiss.
An apocalyptic story of three wars in three film tales encompassing the end of the WWI,WWII, as well as a vision of the world destroyed by nuclear weapons. This film was honored at the film festivals in Venice and Sorrento. Immediately after that the copy with Italian subtitles was locked in a safe as evidence of the anti-communist activities of the director, who used real footage of the Soviet invasion.
A sociological drama with a detective plot taking place in the period of industry and agriculture collectivization of the 1950s. Peter Lánik, a young lawyer, during a trial finds out that whom he thought to be his father is in fact only his stepfather. Little by little he learns about the tragic life of his parents as well as about the dramatical atmosphere of the forced cooperativization of village farms.
The second full-length film of director Dusan Rapos. It was based on Eleonora Gasparova's novel of the same title. The director tells a story about the life and troubles of young people living in the city. The teenagers have to face real life, make their first major decisions, and learn that romance sometimes brings disappointment. The original Slovak music composed for the film by Vaso Patejdl contributed greatly to the film's atmosphere. It helped to make The Fountain for Suzanne a legendary picture of Slovak cinematography at the time.
