Film Studies: National Cinemas

Slovak cinema

The development of cinema in Slovakia in the 20th century is tied to that of Czechoslovakia (see Czech republic, film in the), a nation formed in 1918 of which Slovakia formed a part until 1993. The earliest Slovakian film is usually considered to be Janosik, directed by Jaroslav Siakel and Frantisek Horlivy in 1921. From the 1930s, the studio system in Prague employed Czech and Slovak filmmakers and produced films for audiences across Czechoslovakia. In 1950, a Slovak film studio was completed at Koliba in Bratislava to produce films in Slovakian. Slovak filmmaker Stefan Uher’s Slnko v sieti/Sun in the Net (1962) is considered a key film of the emergent Czech New Wave, and a number of Slovak directors, including Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos, and Peter Solan, were central in that movement. However, any distinction between the two national film industries was not clear at this point, and movement of personnel from one region to another was common.

After the 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Koliba studios were subject to less strict oversight than those in Prague, and as a result most of the key films of the 1970s and 1980s, including work by Dušan Hanák, Martin Hollý, and Juraj Jakubisko, originated in Slovakia. Since independence, and despite government promises to protect and subsidize local film production, output fell to a trickle. Nevertheless, director Martin Šulík, whose lyrical films explore tension in father-son relationships, managed to make critically acclaimed films such as Záhrada/The Garden (1995). Although US films dominate, a state policy for funding, distributings, and promoting national production implemented in 2004 has been successful. Under the aegis of the Slovak Audiovisual Fund (established in 2009), this support has led to the production of around twenty films annually. Co-productions with the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries such as Hungary offer a potentially viable business model, with the big-budget historical epic Bathory (Juraj Jakubisko) breaking box-office records in 2008. The work of filmmakers such as Juraj Nvota (Eštebák/Konfident/The Confidant, 2012) and Juraj Lehotsky (Nina, 2017)), as well as the commercial success of Čiara/The Line (Peter Bebjak, 2017) and Vsetko alebo nic/All or Nothing (Mariana Čengel Solčanská, 2017) signal the viability of the Slovak cinema. In 2018, a new organisational unit of the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, the Slovak Film Commission (SFC), was set up to promote Slovakia and its regions as a receptive location for runaway production. See Eastern Europe, film in.

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Slovakia, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 Oct. 2024

You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included.

Articles and other writings about Slovak films can be found in different publications. Our collection does not include any journals which look exclusively at Slovak films. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.

Find more Slovak films in the online catalog.