The 17th Cinematik International Film Festival starts next week, offering more than 100 films

In just one week, on Tuesday, September 13, 2022, the 17th edition of the Cinematik International Film Festival will open in Piešťany. During six days, its visitors can look forward to a total of 104 films, a number of accompanying events and attractive guests. Part of the opening ceremony will be the Slovak premiere of the film Victim, which just recently had its world premiere in Venice.

The Victim (2022) is the story of a single mother from Ukraine who settled in a small Czech town. She lives with her teenage son, for whom she would do anything. However, when she leaves to extend her visa for a few days, someone brutally beats Igor and the boy subsequently fights for his life in the hospital. Everything points to the fact that the Roma are responsible for the violence, and the local community is united in their desire for justice – but also for revenge. After Igor wakes up in the hospital, the incident becomes a story that takes on a variety of perspectives under the influence of media personalities, politicians and the public.

The feature-length debut of Slovak director Michal Blaško will be presented at Cinematik as the opening film just a few days after its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival. Just like last year’s opening film 107 Mothers (dir. P. Kerekes), the film Victim in Venice is shown in the Orizzonti competition section. It will not be the only exclusive premiere in the Cinematik program. The audience will be the first to see, for example, the film Piargy (dir. Ivo Trajkov) based on František Švantner’s novel of the same name. Tereza Nvotová’s mysterious drama The Nightsirene, which already won the Golden Leopard from the Locarno festival, will have its Slovak pre-premiere at the festival. Cinematik will present it in the In The House section, which will also offer other attractive Slovak and Czech films. Fans of Slovak documentary films will be delighted in the Cinematik.doc competition section, some of which will have their first festival screenings.

A rich selection of high-quality foreign titles will be brought by the Meeting Point Europe section, in which a jury composed of members of the FIPRESCI federation will give an award for the best European feature film of the past year. Festival viewers can be the first in Slovakia to see, for example, this year’s winner of the Palme d’Or from Cannes, the film Triangle of Sadness (2022). There will also be other extraordinary films from Cannes – the intimate British drama Aftersun (2022), the cinematically thought-out French co-production Bergman Island (2022), or the Polish Oscar nomination EO (2022).

In the Respect section, Cinematik will pay tribute to the French director Lucile Hadžihalilović and show her latest film Earwig (2021) in the Slovak premiere. This will happen directly with the participation of the director herself, who will be one of the honored guests of the festival. In the Paths of Glory section, viewers can also discover the Slovak premieres of Gaspar Noé’s new films Vortex (2021) and Park Chan-wook’s Suspect (Heeojil gyeolsim, 2022).

In the traditional Artistic Director’s Selection section, the new film by Claire Denis: Aves Amour Et Acharnement (Fire: Both Sides of the Blade, 2022) with Juliette Binoche in the lead role, as well as the biographical historical drama of the Austrian director and screenwriter Marie Kreutzer: Corsage (2022), which reveals the private life and the personality of Elizabeth of Bavaria.

The popular selection section Beyond the Cult will this time focus on the topic of family. It will be original and scary at times. The Scarred Lands selection, on the other hand, presents a mosaic of titles that reflect the relationship of man to specific territories from a historical and political point of view. Unusual film surprises from domestic and foreign cinematography also await in the Other Spaces and Cinematik Plus sections.

For six days (September 13-18, 2022), Cinematik brings a number of exceptional film experiences to nine screening spaces in Piešťany, as well as an exceptional festival atmosphere, which this year will be contributed to by, for example, concerts by Fallgrapp, The Backwards, discussions by Rádio Devín and the portal Aktuality.sk, the Parallel Worlds exhibition, a cameramanship masterclass, or several lectures, workshops and seminars.