Opening ceremony will be combined with the award ceremony of the Elena Lacková Prize and screening of the film I Shall Not Hate. We invite you, along with Slovenská sporiteľňa bank, to enjoy a variety of refreshments prepared by the clients of the Mareena Community Centre, after the screening.
ABOUT THE FILM:
Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish is a man with an unusually big heart. I Shall Not Hate follows his life’s journey from the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza to the University of Toronto and the Israeli Supreme Court. Abuelaish was the first Palestinian doctor to work in an Israeli maternity ward. But when an Israeli tank bombs his house and kills his three daughters, his mission of forgiveness and reconciliation is put to the ultimate test.
When the prison gates open for Dalibor after two years, he is greeted by a dysfunctional family. His younger brother Kevin, who lives with their abusive, alcoholic father, is missing. After a confrontation with his father, Dalibor helps his mother win custody of Kevin to protect him from a similar ordeal to his own. In an attempt to break out of the vicious cycle, Dalibor finds refuge with a traveling circus. There, he learns to heal his wounds in an unusual way – by becoming a fakir. Through Daliborʼs story, the film explores the power of facing adversity and offers a profound insight into the transformative journey of an individual determined to rewrite his life story. Debuting director Roman Ďuriš adds a metaphorical dimension to this raw yet intimate portrait of a defiant hero. On stage, Dalibor performs the fire spewing and eating, symbolizing his struggle with life in a spectacular shorthand.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers. The discussion will also be interpreted into Slovak Sign Language.
In the remote mountains of central Afghanistan, a Hazara family embarks on a journey for truth and justice after their daughter Zahra mysteriously dies at Kabul University. Told through the eyes of Zahraʼs younger sister, Freshta, the film is a moving contemplation of love, loss, and perseverance in spite of increasing unrest on the eve of the Taliban takeover of the country.
The director will be present for a discussion in English after the screening. The discussion will also be interpreted into Slovak Sign Language.
When her mother freezes to death in the forest on the Polish-Belarusian border, a 16-year-old Kurdish girl Runa has to quickly grow up to take care of her 4 younger brothers and father. The family deals with trauma in a refugee camp and tries to establish a new life in Poland. Runa’s escape from everyday problems is a sketchbook filled with drawings that express what she feels. Gradually, her drawings come to life. The film is a partially animated coming of age story in the times of the global refugee crisis.
The screening will be followed by a discussion in Slovak with journalist Anna Jacková and photographer Michaela Nagyidaiova. The discussion will also be interpreted into Slovak Sign Language.
In Rio de Janeiro City and its outskirts, LGBTQ+ youth of color recreates Ballroom culture on their own terms. A portrait of the dramas, the voguing performances, and the art of shade, fifty years after its inception in New York.
The Ballroom culture has been active even in Slovakia for the past 10 years thanks to Mother Monika Velvet, the founder of the very first Czech-Slovak House: Kiki House of Velvet. Its portrayal is the main theme of the short film House of Velvet (2023, directed by Igor Smitka and Ivana Hucíková) that will be screened before the film This is ballroom.
Members of House of Velvet will join you after the screening. They will be happy to teach you some vogue steps and show you basic ballroom categories you can try on your own should you be interested. You need only to not run away from the auditorium as the closing credits appear and enjoy the half hour mini-workshop right in the screening hall.
Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha will deliver the introduction to the film in English.
How are you to live, when you are the son of a Nazi murderer? Martin Pollack, a reporter and writer, decided to retrace his biological father’s footsteps to give back dignity and identity to his victims. Many of them were killed in Slovakia after the Slovak National Uprising. – Gerhard Bast, an elite Nazi, took part in the massacre of partisans and civilians after the suppression of the Slovak National Uprising near the towns of Banská Bystrica and Ružomberok. His biological son is Martin Pollack, an Austrian journalist and writer. In his book, The Dead Man in the Bunker, he followed Bast’s footsteps in Slovakia. Today, he only returns there through Michal Hvorecký, his friend, translator, and writer-colleague. In the film, Michal Hvorecký seeks out several almost forgotten places of memory related to Bast’s crimes and even living survivors of the Slovak National Uprising and witnesses of Bast’s slaughtering. Throughout this journey, he asks himself: “What does the message of the Slovak National Uprising – through which Slovakia rejected fascist ideology based on intolerance and hatred and took a stand on the right side of history – mean to the Slovak collective memory today?”
The screening will be followed by a discussion in Slovak. The discussion will also be interpreted into Slovak Sign Language.
A teenage Yazidi girl who has just returned from ISIS captivity tries to cope with her trauma while rescuers search for her missing family members. This is the story of the Yazidi Genocide and its aftermath shown through her camera lens.
Awards:
Activist Documentary Award – Hague Movies that Matter Festival 2024 (Netherlands)
Prize of the Jury for the Best Documentary Feature – San Sebastián International Film Festival 2024 (Spain)
Somewhere in Slovakia, there is a boy who resembles the main character of our book – Benjamín. He too talks with his hands. He is also five years old. And he, too, would like to go to kindergarten. He really would.
What is the problem? Surely he can: after all, he has a lot of friends in the backyard; even at the maternity centre. But they told him at the kindergarten near his house that they could not take him because they “were not equipped for it”. At another kindergarten, just across the road, they explained that “it would be better if he was among others like him”. At another, where he would have to take the bus – which would not be a problem, what an adventure after all – “the other children’s parents would not approve” of him simply being there.
Can they say that? Can they tell a child: “We do not want you here?”
No. But to those special kids who can read in the dark, talk with their hands, and drive an electric cart as good as an adult car, it really happens. They often hear: “We do not want you here! We do not know what to do with you!” And they hear it from people who have not even tried at all.
The rejections hurt. So, we came up with a book. Not only about how such a broken world where “other” children are often marginalized works, but also about how we can fix it, make it better and fairer together. You can read about how Benjamín, a boy with a hearing impairment, ran away from kindergarten and what he experienced. Even with his friend Trnda. Children with disabilities are action heroes. Really!
You will read, and at the same time, you will learn various signs. But that is not all! You will also invent your own – and you will discover that there are many ways how to connect with each other. You will learn that you do not need some sort of a manual or “how to” to talk to “other” children. You can understand them on your own: intuitively and with a bit of thinking.
This reading from the book by Ida Želinská and Veronika Kolejáková will be simultaneously interpreted into Slovak sign language.
What makes a male, and what makes a female? Where do we draw the line, and does it really matter? – Sharon-Rose Khumalo, a South African beauty queen, plunges into an identity crisis after finding out she is intersex. In her quest to deal with gender dysphoria, she needs the guidance of somebody just like her. The only person who will help is Dimakatso Sebidi, a masculine presenting intersex activist who turns out to be her complete opposite. The two parallel but divergent stories offer an intimate look at the struggle of living in a male-female world, when you are born in-between. For the first time in a creative documentary, Who I Am Not gives a voice to the long ignored and mostly silent two percent of the world’s population: the intersex community.
The producer Andrei Zinca will be present for a discussion in English after the screening. The discussion will also be interpreted into Slovak Sign Language.
In this hypnotically cinematic love letter flowing through time and generations, director Chloe Abrahams probes raw questions her mother and grandmother have long brushed aside, tenderly untangling painful knots in her family’s unspoken past.
Diana Fabiánová will introduce the film in Slovak.