26-03-2008

Second Slovak premiere in a month

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    A full-length documentary, Blind Loves by director Juraj Lehotský, premiered on Wednesday (March 26) in Slovakia, the second debut this month for the formerly dormant Slovak film industry. In 2006, not a single major Slovak full-length feature film was produced while in 2007 there were four full-length feature films, all of them directors' debuts.

    Blind Loves is a documentary about love among blind people by one of the Slovak masters of the genre. Production took three years, Ján Meliš from the production company Artileria said in a telephone call with FNE. The budget was 5 million crowns (€156,250), with most of the funding (4.5 million crowns) provided by the Slovak Ministry of Culture.

    The first Slovak premiere of 2008, Smog by director Daniel Rihák, is a 40-minute feature film showing one day in the life of a musician in contemporary Bratislava. The budget was 500,000 crowns (€15,625) and filming took ten days in August 2007, producer Marek Veselický from Farbyka company said in an email exchange with FNE. Although many famous Slovak actors and actresses starred in Smog, they were paid very little or even nothing, Rihák said.

    For the year 2008 there are 14 premieres planned of Slovak films. Comparing that with 2006 when no films were produced, 2008 has started with promise.