Accompanying program: Films, discussions, lectures

14.9. Presentation of the project My emigrant / 15:00 – 16:30

My Emigrant is a documentary series based on the theme of Ingrid Mayer about how emigration between 1968 and 1989 affected the lives of people in our country and beyond its borders. By confronting the point of view of emigrants and their loved ones who remained to live in Czechoslovakia, we examine one of the most fundamental questions of the totalitarian regime – the question of personal freedom and its value. Unlike today, the question of leaving in the past was not about a free decision to try life outside, get an education and return at any time. People left or ran away from Czechoslovakia both plannedly and suddenly, but always with the knowledge that they might never return. Some left knowing that by fleeing they were directly endangering their lives, or knowing that their family would not escape punishment. Leaving included the irreversibility of the decision and the responsibility for its often unpredictable consequences. We will focus on this borderline situation, what preceded it, and what came after it.

FEDOR / To leave or to forgive? (dir.: Lena Kušnieriková)

The historical events of the occupation hit hard on the intimate history of families and affect the next generations of relationships. Lena, documentary filmmaker and granddaughter of the emigrant Fedor, picks up the camera and opens up about forgotten family grievances. It sensitively explores how the acquired freedom is redeemed for everyone and gives space for her mother and grandfather to reconcile.

IVAN LEFKOVITS discovers survival and freedom in science and education. (dir.: Jana Durajová)

Ivan acquires an extraordinary ability to survive as a child. In the concentration camp, he learns to read and write. In the communist regime, he develops his resilience and cultivates a desire for education and knowledge. He escapes to Switzerland to do science, where he co-founded the Institute of Immunology. A person’s defensiveness examines his whole life both on a global and private level. While prestigious laboratories receive three Nobel Prizes for his discoveries, he courageously searches for freedom and humanity within himself at the cost of losing his national identity several times.

15.9. Investigative story and discussion by the editors of the Aktuality.sk portal / 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Every minute of reading an investigative article is worth tens of hours of editorial work. A unique 3-part documentary series from behind the scenes of Aktuality.sk will reveal to you how journalists work when uncovering cases. See what the working day looks like for the editors who checked the information in the “Tipos” case, went on the tracks of the Slovak mafia, and who revealed the mysterious assets of the former head of the secret service. The investigative team works to verify hundreds of sources and publishes only those that are supported by facts. Take a look behind the scenes of investigative work with us.

After the screening of three films from the Investigative Story series, a discussion will be moderated by Aktuality.sk editor-in-chief Peter Bárdy. You can look forward to the selected protagonists of the screened documentary and the editors of Aktuality.sk.

16.9. Music videos as film art with Peter Konečný / 15:00 – 16:30

You know those chills when music and image work perfectly together and when the film medium creates a sense of fulfillment? Do you like quality music and its extraordinary cinematic images? We will look at video clips in a completely different way. We will be looking for creativity, formal and content ideas, and above all we will play a lot of great music. It is not at all easy to make a high-quality, creative and meaningful video clip, and that is why there are relatively few of them.

17.9. The state of Slovak documentary film in the post-pandemic period / 13:00 – 14:30

Radio Devín is celebrating its 50th anniversary at the Cinematik festival. For the visitors, it prepared a discussion with Slovak documentary filmmakers about whether the covid period affected the creative production and distribution component of their work. Take part in the live broadcast of Rádio Devín directly in the festival tent.

17.9. Film quiz Cinematik edition / 15:00 – 16:30

Do you like movies (we know that), talk about them, and even compete? So don’t miss the festival film quiz with lots of interesting demonstrations, questions and non-traditional cinematographic disciplines. Test your film knowledge at the Cinematik film festival.

18.9. ŠTB top secret – presentation of the documentary series / 15:00 – 16:30

The twenty-part television documentary series ŠTB: TOP SECRET examines the functioning mechanisms of the State Security /ŠtB/ and their transformation over time. It reveals the background of secret operations, their perpetrators and the stories of their victims, maps the history of the ŠtB from its inception to its demise. We will present two parts of the series at Cinematik.

CHURCH/NOT/BROKEN – director: Jana Bučka Kovalčíková, Michal Fulier / September 28, 2022

“God is nothing but the elevation of human qualities to perfect proportions, it is only a figment of the imagination,” Karl Marx. In the Slovak context, the biggest and strongest opponent of the regime and its iron fist ŠtB was the Catholic Church. Gustáv Husák stated this already in 1945 during the uprising, when he wrote to Moscow about the last and strongest opponent, the fight for which the communists are waiting. The actions and practices of the ŠtB, communist justice and imprisonment during forty years represented a cruel and tragic mosaic of liquidation of the church hierarchy, criminalization of priests, trials of believers and clergy, liquidation of religious orders and monasteries, dozens of unexplained deaths and murders of clergy and laity, imprisonment, harrowing interrogations, wiretapping, surveillance, total abolition of the Greek Catholic Church.

MIER NA ZEMI (PEACE ON EARTH) – director: Jana Bučka Kovalčíková, Michal Fulier / December 21, 2022 or 2023

Many people, crushed by the horrors of the Second World War, became persecutors, investigators and judges of the greatest enemy of communism – the Church. The cruelties of the thug practices of the brutal 1950s were transformed into other forms during the period of normalization in the 1970s and 1980s. Heavy punishments and outright abuse turned into a more sophisticated fear game. The main line of the second part about the church is the story of Father Michal Grejtovský, who in a dramatic arc flips from a positive hero to an antagonist and a zealous informer who “helped” many people to prison, violated confessional secrecy to save his reputation.