Director Juraj Lehotský (source: Photo Karlovy Vary Film Festival.)
THE FEATURE film Môj pes Killer / My Dog Killer continues to garner awards: it received the Cine Vision Award at the International Film Festival in Munich, which is awarded to two feature films. The Slovak-Czech co-production won the award with the Mexican film Halley, by director Sebastian Hofman.
My Dog Killer has already received the Hivos Tiger Award in Rotterdam, the award for best director at the Vilnius International Film Festival and the Special Jury Award at Budapest’s International Titanic Film Festival, the TASR newswire wrote.
At the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic, three Czech-Slovak co-productions were premiered and also garnered awards: Zázrak / Miracle by Slovak director Juraj Lehotský; Zamatoví teroristi / Velvet Terrorists by Slovak directors Pavol Pekarčík, Ivan Ostrochovský and Peter Kerekes; and Líbánky / Honeymoon by Czech director Jan Hřebejk.
Other Slovak films to bring home awards from international festivals include the documentary Zvonky šťastia / Bells of Happiness by Marek Šulík and Jana Bučka, which won the “Silver Grape” award at the Lubusz Film Festival in Lagow, Poland; the short animated film Pandy / Panda by Matúš Vizár received the top Anča Award at the Anča Film Fest in Žilina, Slovakia; and the short documentary Pig Star (a Slovak-Ukrainian co-production), by Michal Angelov, won the Best Documentary Short Film award at the New Directors/New Films festival in Portugal.
The Karlovy Vary festival also saw the launch of the book Best of Slovak Film 1921-1991, which discusses 35 films by 20 directors representing the crème de la crème of Slovak cinematography. The book, written by British film publicist and historian Peter Hames, was also launched at the Art Film Fest in Trenčianske Teplice in June. The overview of Slovak cinematography, published in English, covers films from the first, legendary version of Jánošík by Jaroslav Siakeľ (1921), to Neha / Tenderness by Martin Šulík (1991), and marks the 50th anniversary of the Slovak Film Festival (SFÚ).
Peter Hames specialises in eastern-European and Czech-Slovak cinematography, TASR wrote. He explains in the book’s foreword that although many of the films mentioned in it are known to the public, others are still awaiting international recognition. Almost all of the films in the book have been released on DVD, many with English subtitles.
