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Slovak Director Tereza Nvotová didn’t want to make “Father.”

“To be honest, I thought: ‘I can’t do it. I don’t know how.’ These kinds of movies can be so heavy – you just feel like you’re sinking. But I also couldn’t stop thinking about this story.”

In the Venice Horizons drama, sold by Intramovies, a horrific mistake destroys one father’s life, threatening his career, marriage and even his sanity. Nvotová’s co-writer Dušan Budzak based it on the ordeal of his own best friend.

“My mind kept going back to the day when this happened to him, which was sort of a boring day – the kind we have all the time. And then everything changes, and he’s crushed. I realized it wasn’t just some horrible story. This could actually happen to me, too,” she tells Variety.

“Father” is not based just on one case,...

Tereza Nvotová’s Venice-bound “Father” doesn’t offer any easy answers for the moral dilemma at the core of its narrative. The film centres around a man whose memory lapse leads to a harrowing, irreversible tragedy. It affects his personal and professional life to the point of no turning back. Director Nvotová, who also wrote the script with Dusan Budzak, doesn’t paint any of the characters as villains, even the ones who are the easiest to blame, considering the situation at hand. Instead, she probes into the character’s emotional turmoil to reveal what it must feel like to live and breathe as someone who may never be able...

We are one week away from the opening of the 82 edition of the Venice Film Festival and among the competition films found in the Orizzonti section we have the latest feature by Slovakian filmmaker Tereza Nvotová. After 2017’s Filthy and 2022’s Golden Leopard-winning genre film Nightsiren, we fall into the crux and cracks of the family unit in Father (Otec). How does one family experience tragic incident and how significant of a strain is it are fertile matters we explore here. Milan Ondrík plays the hubby-patriarch-father while Dominika Morávková (who toplined Filthy) plays the wife-matriarch-mother.…...

Exclusive: Italian sales agent Intramovies has boarded Slovak director Tereza Nvotová’s Father, which is set to world premiere in Venice’s Horizons competition.

Father is the third film from Nvotová, whose feminist horror-drama Nightsiren won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in the Filmmakers of the Present competition in 2022.

Father won the Screen International Award last year at Mia Market’s work-in-progress programme C EU Soon.

Inspired by a true story, the film follows a devoted father whose life is shattered by a single tragic mistake, pushing his marriage and his will to live to the brink. Facing a long prison sentence,...

Exclusive: Italian sales agent Intramovies has boarded Slovak director Tereza Nvotová’s Father, which is set to world premiere in Venice’s Horizons competition.

Father is the third film from Nvotová, whose feminist horror-drama Nightsiren won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in the Filmmakers of the Present competition in 2022.

Father won the Screen International Award last year at Mia Market’s work-in-progress programme C EU Soon.

Inspired by a true story, the film follows a devoted father whose life is shattered by a single tragic mistake, pushing his marriage and his will to live to the brink. Facing a long prison sentence,...

The Hungarian Dressmaker, Slovakia’s official submission to the Academy Awards for best international feature film, is more apt than ever, says its director and writer, Iveta Grofova.

Through interpretation by translator Jakub Tlolka, the filmmaker shares her insight into spotlighting a specific part of political history with the World War II drama, which screened in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s main Crystal Globe competition and stars Alexandra Borbely. “I found it very important to highlight the subject again,” Grofova says during a recent THR Presents panel, powered by Vision Media. Marika (Borbely), a Hungarian widow dressmaker, shelters a Jewish boy in her home on the Slovak-Hungarian border. Adapted from Peter Kristufek’s book Emma and the Death’s Head, the movie takes place during the turbulent years of the Nazi-aligned Slovak state, forcing Slovakians to confront a dark era of their past that many, Grofova says, would prefer to forget.

Plaion Pictures have announced the release of the highly anticipated Restore Point. The Czech Sci-Fi Noir is available now on Digital Download including to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video in the UK. Directed by Robert Hloz, Restore Point stars Andrea Mohylová, Matěj Hádek, Václav Neužil, Milan Ondrík and Karel Dobrý. Featuring stunning retro-futuristic design, this extremely stylish sci-fi thriller explores mankind’s fascination with mortality is reminiscent of Blade Runner and Minority Report.

Short Synopsis:

Set in central Europe during 2041, a female detective investigates the case of a murdered couple where a restoration team is able to bring one of them back to life.

Imagine you’re living in the year 2041, when you have the right to be brought back to life if you die in an accident or suffer an otherwise unnatural death. All you need to do is regularly make a digital backup of your personality – a Restore Point.

A lacquered Czech period piece with surprisingly topical interests at its core, “We Have Never Been Modern” rather ambitiously borrows its title from a key text by the late French philosopher Bruno Latour — in which he argued that humanity’s distinction between nature and our own culture is a wholly modern development, and one we’d do best to move away from. While Latour’s ideas can indeed be mapped onto a story that charts modern society’s fixation on human advancement against its rejection of human difference, Matěj Chlupáček’s gripping, gleamingly produced second feature isn’t as academic as all that: Ultimately a humane message movie planting flags for both women’s liberation and queer rights, this Karlovy Vary competition premiere could easily resonate with festival and arthouse audiences away from home turf.

Following extensive work in TV, shorts and music videos, Chlupáček’s return to the big...

Keep an eye on this one! Continental Film has released a first look trailer for a slick Czech sci-fi movie called Restore Point, a reference to the video game idea of "save points". This will premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival next month. It looks considerably impressive, with a number of fantastic shots in this teaser alone. The story of the film is set in 2041, when humanity uses special tech and the constitution guarantees all citizens the right to "one whole life". After an unnatural death, like a car accident, a person can be fully restored from their digital backup. It is enough to regularly create a digital backup of your personality every two days - a "restore point". But does humanity even deserve the right to a second chance? The plot follows a detective investigating the case of a murdered couple when a restoration team can only bring one of them back.

Sales

Red Arrow International has sold documentary “Controlling Britney Spears” to a raft of territories. The 75-minute documentary contains new allegations from insiders with intimate knowledge of the pop icon’s daily life under her controversial conservatorship.

The documentary has been sold to Sky (U.K.), Nine (Australia), Crave (Canada), Three (New Zealand), Talpa TV (the Netherlands), Vgtv (Norway), TV2 (Denmark), TV4, MTV and Cmore (Sweden and Finland), Discovery (Italy and Philippines), Originals Factory (French and German-speaking Europe), HOT8 (Israel), yes-Dbs (Israel), TV Nova’s streamer Voyo (Czech Republic and Slovakia), Pro Plus (Slovenia), Globo for its GloboPlay streaming service (Brazil), and Tvn Grupa Discovery (Poland) including for its streaming platform Player.

“Controlling Britney Spears” is a follow-up to “Framing Britney Spears” and was produced in partnership by The New York Times and Left/Right, a Red Arrow Studios company. It premiered last month on FX and Hulu in the U.

The Slovak director’s latest feature-length project will be shot in the new film noir style. Peter Bebjak, one of the most prolific Slovak directors, has been dividing his career between Slovakia and the Czech Republic as well as between the small and the big screen. After the period drama The Report (read the news), Slovakia’s candidate for the 93rd Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award in the Best International Feature Film category, and the television miniseries The Actor (read the news), Bebjak has already started shooting a new feature film, a revenge thriller titled Shadowplay. Written by Vendula Bradáčová, Slovakian actor Milan Ondrík (read the interview) stars in the leading role as Jan, a man who leaves his wife (Dominika Morávková) who herself will soon become the victim of crime. Jan turns into a widower with the full awareness that he is responsible for his wife’s death because.

The tenth edition of the Slovakian national film awards shone a spotlight on the domestic film industry, while Marko Škop's movie walked away with five trophies. Marko Škop’s sophomore fiction feature, Let There Be Light, has come out on top at the tenth-anniversary edition of the Slovak national film awards, Sun in a Net. The social family drama, which travelled the festival circuit very widely and was picked as Slovakia’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards (see the news), also netted the accolades for Best Director and Best Screenplay, while Zuzana Konečná and Milan Ondrík received the gongs for Best Lead Actress and Actor. While Škop’s film took home five awards, it was Jonáš Karásek’s political thriller Amnesty that led the nominations, with a total of 12. The thriller, inspired by the events following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, President Václav Havel’s amnesties and a bloody.

Silent Days will also be in the running, duking it out for European Documentary. The Slovak Film and Television Academy (Sfta) has chosen the three domestic candidates that will be contending for the European Film Awards, set to be handed out during the European Film Academy’s ceremony on 12 December in Reykjavik. The Slovakian movies picked from the batch of domestic majority co-productions include Marko Škop’s sophomore feature-length fiction film, Let There Be Light. The family drama, revolving around the rise of far-right extremism in a rural village, got off to a flying start in the main competition of the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, winning the Best Actor Award for the film’s male lead, Milan Ondrík (see the news), before netting prizes on the international festival circuit. Ultimately, the Sfta submitted Let There Be Light to represent the country in the Best International Feature Film category of the.

The 2019 installment of the sprawling Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 – July 6), held for more than 50 years at the sunny resort hub of the Czech Republic, boasted 12,521 accredited attendees, including 395 filmmakers, 1158 global industry professionals, and 605 journalists. They watched a selection of 177 films at 497 screenings.

Karlovy Vary, run by president Jiří Bartoška and artistic director Karel Och, runs three competitive categories. “The Father,” from Bulgaria and Greece, took home the Grand Prix, and “Lara,” from Germany, won three awards. The full list of winners is below.

Official Selection – Competition

Jury: Štěpán Hulík (Czech Republic), Annemarie Jacir (State of Palestine),Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine), Angeliki Papoulia (Greece), Charles Tesson (France)

Grand Prix – Crystal Globe

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s “The Father”

Special Jury Prize

Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Director Award

Tim Mielants for “Patrick” (Belgium)

Best Actress Award

Corinna Harfouch, star of Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Actor Award

Milan Ondrík,...

The 2019 installment of the sprawling Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 – July 6), held for more than 50 years at the sunny resort hub of the Czech Republic, boasted 12,521 accredited attendees, including 395 filmmakers, 1158 global industry professionals, and 605 journalists. They watched a selection of 177 films at 497 screenings.

Karlovy Vary, run by president Jiří Bartoška and artistic director Karel Och, runs three competitive categories. “The Father,” from Bulgaria and Greece, took home the Grand Prix, and “Lara,” from Germany, won three awards. The full list of winners is below.

Official Selection – Competition

Jury: Štěpán Hulík (Czech Republic), Annemarie Jacir (State of Palestine),Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine), Angeliki Papoulia (Greece), Charles Tesson (France)

Grand Prix – Crystal Globe

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s “The Father”

Special Jury Prize

Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Director Award

Tim Mielants for “Patrick” (Belgium)

Best Actress Award

Corinna Harfouch, star of Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Actor Award

Milan Ondrík,...

The 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has wrapped today and set its winners with Bulgarian road-trip comedy The Father taking home the top prize Grand Prix Crystal Globe, which comes with cash prize of $25,000. Scroll down for a full list of winners.

The Czech festival’s special jury prize went to German drama Lara, while best director went to Tim Mielants for Belgian feature Patrick. Milan Ondrík won best actor for his role in Czech film Let There Be Light and Corinna Harfouch won the best actress accolade for the aforementioned Lara.

This year’s competition jury comprised Štěpán Hulík, Annemarie Jacir, Sergei Loznitsa, Angeliki Papoulia and Charles Tesson. As previously revealed, there were career Crystal Globes for Julianne Moore and Patricia Clarkson.

Full List Of Winners:

Grand Prix – Crystal Globe (25 000 Usd)

The financial award is shared equally by the director and producer of the award-winning film.

The Father / Bashtata

Directed by: Kristina Grozeva,...

The multilayered “Let There Be Light” is an earnest, relatable state-of-the-nation drama from helmer-writer Marko Škop that highlights xenophobia, religious hypocrisy and the rise of the extreme right in a small Slovak village. Tapping into numerous of-the-moment issues, the story unfolds from the perspective of a middle-aged carpenter who returns at Christmas from working on a construction job in Germany and finds his community (and his sons) in thrall to a controlling Catholic priest and a mysterious, far-right paramilitary youth group called The Guard. Although some may be frustrated by former documentarian Škop’s observational rather than overtly critical view of his country’s rising nationalism, the film raises important and provocative questions for which there are no easy answers.

Cheerful construction worker Milan grew up in the remote village where his family still lives. He was raised by a brutal, critical father (Ľubomír Paulovič) and trained as a carpenter from a young age.