Karol Spišák

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

A television film based on a play by Ján Kákoš with the theme of Slovak National Uprising.

Seven people waiting for their death. A group of assasins - three men and two women - and Gypsy thief spend their time in prison to be tucked up.

Two female clerks using up their savings to enjoy a few days of carefree life, two plumbers looking for an erotic adventure, a building contractor determined to drink away all wages of his workers and a former major who became an alcoholic due to political persecution — these people meet in a ski resort bar somewhere in the High Tatras. During one night they gradually reveal their unfulfilled dreams, illusions and disappointments of ”average" people of those times.

A dramatic story from the setting of a youth de tention center. Youngster Jakub, out of delusory solidarity, gets convicted of theft and goes to prison in place ofthe "sheriff" of his gang. He naively hopes that the sheriff will appreciate his gesture and leaves the stolen goods in a safe hideaway to later divide them fairly among the gang members. This conviction gives Jakub the strength to endure the unbearable conditions in the center. But reality is often much harsher than naive ideals and hollow relations in the gang.

The film could have been a lyrical evocation of the ČSSR's first generation: the youngsters born during the war, who grew up in a state violently at pains to find and define itself, and were now ready to break away from the nation-builder ethics of their elders – but Grečner turned it into an anxiety-riddled existentialist vision of a whole globe in fear.