Marek Leščák

On a cold February morning, 12-year-old Niki and his family arrive at the Kharkiv metro station to take shelter from the terrifying war raging outside. For Niki's family, daylight is synonymous with mortal danger, and the boy is not allowed to leave the station premises, living under the constant glow of their neon lights. While aimlessly wandering around the abandoned cars and full platforms, Niki meets Vika (11), and a new world opens up to him. As their bond strengthens, the children find the courage once again to feel the sun on their faces.

Josef is a writer aged sixty, who thinks that nothing can surprise him any more. One evening, though, his phone rings and he finds himself caught up in a series of events that turn his world upside-down. His best friend – also a writer – tries to commit suicide; his young girlfriend Katka tells him she’s pregnant; and the man with hare ears – his alter ego from one of his stories – appears to him in everyday situations.

La Iglesia Católica atraviesa un momento complicado en Checoslovaquia a principios de los años 80. El régimen comunista amenaza con destruir la institución y la somete a un estricto control, por lo que se ve obligada a aceptar ciertas restricciones relacionadas con la libertad de creencias y de expresión. El clérigo está dividido entre la "iglesia de las catacumbas", que mantiene el contacto con el Vaticano y con la prensa occidental, y la "jerarquía eclesiástica", que coopera con las fuerzas del poder y está representada por sacerdotes pertenecientes a la asociación "Pacem in Terris", cuya vida se extendió en el país desde 1971 hasta 1989. Este es el contexto en el que los jóvenes seminaristas Michal y Juraj tienen que decidir si mantenerse fieles a su vocación e idealismo o arrodillarse ante las presiones de la policía secreta.

Ali Ungar es un anciano, de 80 años, que descubre un libro escrito por un oficial de las SS durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El libro cuenta cómo el soldado acabó con la vida de los padres de Ungar en Eslovaquia. El hombre decide vengarse pero, cuando llega a la casa del soldado, este ha muerto. En su lugar se encuentra Georg, su hijo, un profesor retirado. Georg siempre ha querido huir del legado de su padre pero desea saber más de él. El ex profesor se ofrece a ser el intérprete de Ungar y los dos emprenden un viaje juntos en el que deberán dejar a un lado los prejuicios.

Nina tiene 12 años. Sus padres se están divorciando y el mundo se está derrumbando ante sus ojos

A story of children who feel safer in the streets than at home, about children seeking out sturdy lifeboats that cross between the world of fantasy and the harsh reality of life. Jarka is one of these children. Ten years-old, and living with a mother who is not yet ready to be a mom, Jarka spends most of her time alone. Pushed by her desire for love and to form a fully functional family, she finds herself substituting a "mother" to two babies.

Peter "Koza" Baláz is a former Olympic boxer. He and his partner, Misa, live in a dilapidated housing estate, constantly struggling to make ends meet. Misa learns that she is expecting a child and decides to terminate her pregnancy. In order to earn some much-needed cash and possibly change Misa's mind. He and his manager Zvonko embark on a "tour", where success is not measured in victories, but in the amount of blows that Koza can take.

Virtually without exception, a relation between parents and children is something that affects us throughout our lives. The first fiction film by award-winning documentarist Jaro Vojtek is an omnibus film about complicated relationships between parents and their children in which characters are challenged with long-term separation or declining health. Four stories titled Son, Marathon, Canary and Father tell four different tales that form a single view on the troubled relationship between parents and children. Each story takes place in a different season and together they create a multi-layered mosaic of relations reflecting hopes, disappointments and inevitable decisions. With a documentary filmmaker’s precision, Vojtek observes the characters and their behaviour, presenting an authentic picture of damaged family relations.

Ela, de 15 años, se encuentra en una correccional. Las reclusas han tenido experiencias muy sombrías pero mantienen sus sueños y deseos.

A grittily realistic tale of prostitution at an Eastern European border town

A grittily realistic tale of prostitution at an Eastern European border town

La muerte del padre de Adam, un chico gitano de 14 años, rodeada de sospechas ("ustedes lo mataron, racistas”, gritan los habitantes a la policía), da inicio a este retrato de la fatalidad que acompaña la existencia gitana: extrema pobreza, chozas improvisadas, constantes agresiones verbales y una agresividad latente. Sin embargo, también muestra con rectitud la energía de los gitanos, que se transmite a través de la música, la religión, el sentido de la familia y la presencia de numerosos niños que corren por las calles. (FILMAFFINITY)

A poetic story about love and happiness between doc and fiction.

Veinticinco cineastas, uno por cada estado de la Unión Europea, realizaron una película sobre sus respectivos países. Todas tenían el mismo presupuesto, debían estar ambientadas en el presente o en un futuro inmediato y durar cinco minutos. No había otras limitaciones, de modo que los autores tenían plena libertad para expresarse. Entre los directores figuran tanto nombres consagrados como voces nuevas dentro del panorama cinematográfico. Cada corto tiene su propia identidad, por lo que es posible establecer comparaciones fascinantes; pero, además, juntos ofrecen una imagen global de la Comunidad Europea a través de la fusión de esas distintas visiones conceptuales y creativas.

In Slovakia, the sixteen year-old Terezka is discharged from her school with a letter to her mother. Along her surrealistic journey to find her mother, Terezka entwines reality and fantasy and meets a man that is hired to burn clothes; a woman buried on the ground; a young bride that is marrying the forty and something year-old widow of his brother to support her family as a tradition in their village; her younger brother that is intern in a special school; a decadent TV comedian and his wife; a powerful mobster in the kitchen of a restaurant; one lover of her mother in her former address; and finally her promiscuous mother that advises her to travel through the world.