The Betyari z Felvidék (source: Presburg Productions)
Bratislava has never looked better. Brimming with optimism, the Slovak dramedy series "Pressburg" began streaming on Netflix just before Christmas. For a time, it held the #1 spot in Slovakia’s Top 10 most-watched films and series. "Pressburg" is the first-ever bilingual series produced in the country, with Netflix providing subtitles in English, Slovak, Hungarian, and Czech.
The brainchild of husband-and-wife writing duo Csaba Molnár and Lucia Molnár Satinská, the show explores themes of multiculturalism and the interactions between various minority groups in Slovakia through a lively and engaging caper—though not without its moments of character-driven drama. Several plot points draw inspiration from real-life acts of civil disobedience by the Bilingual South Slovakia movement, as well as the writers' off-screen romance.
A multilingual cast
Attila (Attila Matusek) is an ethnic Hungarian farm boy from Číčov (Csicsó), a Slovak-Hungarian town in southern Slovakia. When his father suffers a heart attack during the repossession of their family orchard, Attila is forced to travel to Bratislava—both to visit him in hospital and to find gainful employment in the hope of earning enough to buy the orchard back. His Slovak isn’t great; at work, selling “traditional Slovak lángos,” he has to switch to English to understand orders. His manager advises him that the best way to improve his Slovak is "v posteli"—in bed.
