The film, with its many striking parallels to populist and nationalist political leaders coming into power today, was the opening film at the Jihlava IDFF, which runs through 29 October 2017. Zuzana Mistrikova from PubRes told FNE that the producers are in discussions with sales agents. The Slovak/Czech coproduction was produced by PubRes, Negativ and HBO Europe.

Slovak films are faring especially well on the domestic box office this year. The children’s film Spievankovo a Kráľovná Harmónia (RTVS with support from the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and distributed by Ita Film) directed by Diana Novotna held on to first place in its second week, closing in on 49,000 admissions.

Peter Bebjak’s Slovak/Ukrainian crime thriller The Line / Čiara was in 13th place after 12 weeks in the cinemas, reaching 322,000 admissions. It was released by Continental Film in Slovakia and will soon be released on 28 October in the Czech Republic by Bontonfilm. The film was produced by Slovakia‘s Wandal Production in coproduction with Ukraine‘s Garnet International Media Group, RTVS, HomeMedia Production and Martin Kohút. The budget of 1.3 m EUR was partially covered by the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, Creative Europe, the Ukrainian State Film Agency, the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic and Bratislava Self-Governing Region.

Pavol Barabas’ documentary about mountain climbing Vabenie Vysok opened in 14th place with 2,328 admissions. The film was produced by K2 Studio and coproduced by RTVS with support from the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and distributed by the Association of Slovak Film Clubs..