Peter Krištúfek (source: TASR)
Publisher Koloman Kertész Bagala – who published the book debut of Peter Krištúfek – confirmed for the Sme daily that the Slovak writer and maker of documentary films died on Monday, April 23. He was one of the two fatalities resulting from the collision between a bus and a truck on the R1 dual carriageway from Banská Bystrica to Zvolen, near the village of Badín.
Peter Krištúfek, a Bratislava native, graduated in film and TV directing at the local Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU). He made more than 20 documentary movies and two shorter feature films– Noc na Slnku (A Night in the Sun) and Aký nádherný svet! (What a Wonderful World!).
He shot the TV film Dlhá Krátka Noc (Long Short Night), for which he received the Igric Award in 2004, and the long documentary film Momentky (Snapshots) about musician Dežo Ursiny.
Successful in the Hungarian, English market
Krištúfek published four books with the publishing house of Koloman Kertész Bagala. He reached the final round of the Poviedka (Short Story) literary competition. He received the Ivan Krasko Award for his collection of short stories, Nepresné Miesto (Inaccurate Place).
With the novel Dom Hluchého (The House of the Deaf Man), he also reached the Hungarian and English literary market.
Krištúfek loved detective stories and had a very sophisticated, charming style. In movies, he tried to discover a new language, shooting unconventionally.
This year, he planned to publish a new novel and start filming his novelette Ema a Smrtihlav (Ema and the Death’s-Head Hawkmoth) with cinematographer Martin Štrba, who just recently received the national film award Sun in a Net. They cooperated on Krištúfek’s last film, Viditeľný Svet (The Visible World).
