Emília Došeková

Cruel Joys

This simple story is the feature debut for well-known Slovak theater and television director Juraj Nvota. Set in a Slovak village at the turn of the last century, the story teems with passion, and repressed and hidden emotion. It delves into the search for identity, investigating both love and hatred, while dramatizing the tragic relationship between an adolescent girl (Tatiana Pauhofová) and her ambitious father (Ondrej Vetchý). Set against the striking though simple backdrop of a picturesque, even idyllic, landscape - one ostensibly cut off from any important historical, political, or social context whatsoever - the arrival of an unwanted individual evokes the onset of a cruel drama.

Surviving Life (Theory and Practice)

Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life - one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the meaning of his dreams. Eugene finds a way of entering his dream-world at will and finds out about his childhood and what really happened to his parents.

If I Had a Gun

Vlado, an intelligent boy living in a small village, has fantasies that take him away from his humdrum life. But as the Nazi occupation begins to encroach on the townsfolk his fantasies and reality begin to merge.

She Kept Asking for the Moon

Johanka had a fling with a well digger she had not met before and who, she was most likely certain, would never be around again. Just before his departure, they have sex and she eventually becomes single mother of a baby girl. Now, 18 years later, her daughter Paulina commutes by bus to work in the nearby city, which gives the village gossips the occasional opportunity to remind her of her unknown father. A resultant conflict with her mother makes Paulina take up residence in the city. Johanka, prodded by her also-single friend Jozefka who maintains that a woman without a man is nothing, begins to woo the new teacher Jarek only to discover later that he is married. Paulina, in the meantime, loses her virginity to the soldier Jirka who promptly makes himself scarce. Johanka fails to consider that she actually has a better life than some of her married neighbors, begins to see.

If I Had a Girl

Vlado has just passed his high school diploma and is starting a job as a home tutor in the family of a big businessman. He finds himself in a very difficult turning point in 1947-48. He does not understand much of what is happening around him. He constantly experiences emotional confusion, comes into conflict with his conscience and finally has to decide between love and reason...

Maple and Juliana

A girl is transformed into a maple tree by her impulsive and angry mother. Three poor wandering musicians come by the tree and create instruments from it. Walking around the country instead of happiness they bring death everywhere with their cursed instruments. However they cannot get rid of them, unless they bury the wooden instruments at the place of the tree. The three are anything but harmonious, each taking in their disputes various stances.

Orest z rodu čarodejníkov

King Philip, wounded in a losing battle, promises the witch Fate "the most precious thing he has" for victory and peace in his country. However, he has no idea what Fate is really asking of him. When he learns that it is his infant daughter Radena, he does everything in desperation to save her. For years he has been searching in vain for Fata, and the day of fulfilling his promise draws near...

Poéma o svedomí

Historical reconstruction of the events of the anti-fascist struggle in Slovakia in 1943 and 1944.