Slovak USA invites you to attend
"The 14th Annual European Union Film Festival"
From March 4 through 31, the Gene Siskel Film Center
welcomes you to the 14th Annual European Union Film Festival, the
largest showcase in North America for the cinema of European Union
nations. This year’s festival, our largest yet, boasts 64 films
representing 24 nations including Slovakia and Czech Republic.
Showtimes
- FOXES
- 2010, Mira Fornay,
- Slovakia/Ireland, 90 min.
- With Rita Bánczi, Réka Derzsi
Shot on location in Ireland, FOXES charts the uneasy relationship of two Slovakian sisters whose family secret puts them on a collision course in their adopted land. Martina is a slave to image, ever straining to match the middle class respectability of her tightly wound Irish fiancé. Younger sister Alzbeta, an au pair ill-suited to the work, seems hell bent on challenging her sister’s image with sluttish ways and a talent for trouble. In English, Slovak, Czech, and Polish with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Film Europe. (BS)
THE BORDER
Showtimes
Tickets
THE BORDER - (HRANICA) 2009, Jaro Vojtek, Slovakia, 72 min.
“Director Jaro Vojtek is one of the most talented of his generation.”
—Rotterdam International Film Festival program
“Stranger than fiction” is a term that aptly applies to this Slovak submission for Academy Award consideration. Director Vojtek spent seven years documenting the fallout from an absurd 1946 political decision that resulted in an idyllic rural village being split down the middle between two nations, Czechoslovakia and the former Soviet Union, now Ukraine. For sixty years, neighbors, cousins, and friends have shouted family news and gossip across the barrier that divides them, and lived with the emotional scars of the rupture. In Slovak with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Leon Productions. (BS)
Showtimes
- HABERMANN
- 2010, Juraj Herz, Czech Republic/
- Germany/Austria, 104 min.
- With Mark Waschke, Hannah Herzsprung
Based on a true story, this finely crafted historical drama chronicles the persecution and expulsion from Czech land of innocent minority Germans in the wake of WWII. During the war, a mill owner and his family, the wealthy elite in a small town, are torn between the pressures exerted by the occupying Nazis and the urgency of the Czech resistance. When the beautiful wife, an orphan raised by nuns, is discovered to be of Jewish origin, there emerge enemies in the town who hope to profit by bringing the family to ruin. In Czech and German with English subtitles. Special advance screening courtesy of Corinth Films. 35mm widescreen. (BS)
KAWASAKI'S ROSE
Showtimes
- KAWASAKI’S ROSE
- (KAWASAHIKO RUZE)
- 2009, Jan Hrebejk, Czech Republic, 100 min.
- With Lenka Vlasáková, Martin Huba
“The acting is flawless, the cinematography sublime.”
—Angus Wolfe Murray, Eye for Film
“Emotionally meaty…marbled with a lightness of touch.”
—Derek Elley, Variety
A failing marriage and a son-in-law’s resentment set the stage for the downfall of a national hero in this official Czech submission for Oscar consideration. Director Hrebejk (BEAUTY IN TROUBLE, I’M ALL GOOD) deftly juggles intersecting storylines of infidelity and betrayal with a characteristic infusion of wry humor, as a distinguished doctor on the eve of being honored with a national award is revealed to be other than he seems. The family threatens to collapse like a house of cards, but disaster turns out to have a warmly human face in this drama that plumbs the depths of guilt and comes out the other side. In Czech with English subtitles. Special advance screening courtesy of Menemsha Films, Inc. 35mm widescreen. (BS)
PROTEKTOR
Showtimes
- PROTEKTOR
- 2009, Marek Najbrt, Czech Republic/
- Germany, 98 min.
- With Marek Daniel, Jana Plodkova
“Striking style…a cool, noirish slant.”
—Hollywood Reporter
“Rhythmic graphics and samplings of Gershwin.”
—Robert Koehler, Variety
The movie sets, cabarets, and studios of 1940s Prague, rendered in rich black-and-white and eerily bleached color, form the backdrop to this starkly stylish drama of artists, Third Reich villains, and moral choices. Popular film ingénue Hana’s career plummets when her Jewish roots are revealed, just as the smooth voice of her radio announcer husband Emil finds favor with his new Nazi bosses. Hana looks for extramarital love in dangerous places, while Emil discovers that the favor of his overlords is a two-edged sword. In Czech with English subtitles. Special advance screening courtesy of Film Movement. 35mm. (BS)