David Kollar

In the 1990s post-communist Slovakia, former woods worker Miki takes his chances to start doing business at a local level and climb up the ladder to become the biggest mafia boss in the country.

They left ordinary life, wife, kids, work and entered to a monastery. In its portraits of three monks, Erik Praus’s documentary captures the inimitable spiritual ambiance and mysticism of Pochayiv Lavra, an Eastern Orthodox monastery on a hill above the town of Pochayiv in western Ukraine’s Ternopil Oblast. Fathers Gabriel, Vicilentius and Nazarij have left their past traumas behind, finding peace, balance and their lives’ meaning at the monastery. Their stories are allegories of spiritualization and purification from human passions against the backdrop of the turbulent Ukrainian reality. Motivated by material need and spiritual desperation, the faithful flock to this place of pilgrimage in search of new strength and forgiveness. The film respectfully observes the monks’ everyday lives, while also noticing the opulent splendour of their surroundings. The road to faith is not a privilege of the chosen few; it is open to all who hear its “calling”.

Stanko has been living in Italy for years. He did all right for a time, but lies and broken promises have driven him to living on the margins of society. When he has wasted all his chances, Paolo, a gangster who deals in trafficking of women, asks him to drive a girl from Slovakia to Italy. The young man is absolutely determined to do something properly, but he has no idea how the girl will end up. The journey becomes unexpectedly complicated when Stanko makes friends with the girl... A tragicomic road movie about people who have nothing but dreams and friendship.