Publisher: SFI

The monthly Film.sk is published by the Slovak Film Institute (SFI), but its Publications Department also produces other materials, including film publications, DVDs and soon Blu-rays too.

On the occasion of the centenary of the start of World War I, the DVD with Signum Laudis by director Martin Hollý was launched on the market. This dramatic story focuses on Corporal Hoferik who is made to pay dearly for his devotion to the army and the monarchy, his sense of duty and his faith in ideals. The second DVD includes The Sweet Time of Kalimagdora (Sladký čas Kalimagdory); in it director Leopold Lahola captures the life cycle of Jonáš on the principle of four seasons – in spring Jonáš behaves like a little boy, he becomes a man in summer, he gradually loses his energy in autumn and eventually he disappears into the mountains and lies down for a winter sleep. Last year, the SFI also prepared a second, modified DVD issue of popular films of the 1970s and 1980s, namely Red Wine (Červené víno, dir. A. Lettrich), Pacho, the Brigand of Hybe (Pacho, hybský zbojník, dir. M. Ťapák), Sweet Troubles (Sladké starosti, dir. J. Herz) and She Kept Crying for the Moon (Pásla kone na betóne, dir. Š. Uher). A set of newsreels Week in Film 1945 – 1990 (Týždeň vo filme 1945 – 1990) was issued on 5 DVDs. The set consists of short reports capturing period events. The DVD collection contains 50 newsreels in all. Each of the above DVD titles includes at least English subtitles.

Several new publications also came into existence. The film theoreticians and aestheticians, Peter Michalovič and Vlastimil Zuska, are the authors of Discussions of a Western (Rozprava o westerne). The book deals with the genre contexts of the western, its determining attributes, characters, environments, weapons, types of conflict and, of course, it makes reference to many films from various periods of cinematography. At the end of 2014, another book by pop-culture theoretician Juraj Malíček and IT expert and film journalist František Gyárfáš was published. Our Film Century (Naše filmové storočie) contains texts reflecting on a hundred miscellaneous films divided into ten chapters according to theme. Each of the authors offers his own view on the films selected. The SFI Publications Department continues to issue the filmological magazine Kino-Ikon (published in collaboration with the Association of Slovak Film Clubs – ASFC, the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and the SFI). The occasional magazine from students of Film Science at the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava entitled Frame also forms a part of Kino-Ikon. The SFI has issued a collection of texts Film and the Cultural Memory (Film a kultúrna pamäť) in collaboration with the ASFC; it contains contributions from the participants of the Czecho-Slovak Filmological Conference in Krpáčovo. The SFI was also involved in issuing the publication Schemes of the Language (Úklady jazyka) by the renowned film publicist Pavel Branko.

Inter alia, this year a representative 10 Blu-ray collection of Slovak films is to be produced. This was initiated by the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic in association with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic in connection with Slovakia’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2016. The collection should contain five archive films made prior to 1989 and five films made in the past twenty-five years. The collection of films from SFI’s own collection, for which the SFI exerts producer rights, contains The Sun in a Net (Slnko v sieti, dir. Š. Uher, 1962), The Boxer and Death (Boxer a smrť, dir. P. Solan, 1962), Birdies, Orphans, and Fools (Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni, dir. J. Jakubisko, 1969), I Love, You Love (Ja milujem, ty miluješ, dir. D. Hanák, 1980) and A Path Across the Danube (Chodník cez Dunaj, dir. M. Luther, 1989).

Daniel Bernát