Slovak Films on Foreign DVDs

The Slovak Film Institute also collaborates with foreign DVD publishers. th is year, the British company Second Run DVD plans to issue Before Tonight Is Over (Kým sa skončí táto noc, dir. Peter Solan), Tenderness (Neha, dir. Martin Šulík) and Štefan Uher’s The Miraculous Virgin (Panna zázračnica). The Miraculous Virgin will be even issued on Blu-ray with ample bonus material.

The above films differ in many aspects, but while Before Tonight Is Over and The Miraculous Virgin date back to the 1960s, Tenderness was made in 1991 and it was the full-length début of director Martin Šulík whose latest film The Interpreter (Tlmočník) is being screened at the current Berlin International Film Festival. The Miraculous Virgin (1966) was made by Štefan Uher who, just a few years previously, made The Sun in a Net (Slnko v sieti, 1962), regarded as the “opening” film of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Solan’s film Before Tonight Is Over (1965) was interesting within the context of the period and the region, among others, for the exceptional degree of acting improvisation. “They may be very different films but they all have the same ethos in common. Important films with techniques that clearly mark them out as very special, not just the direction but also the incredible soundtracks, the mise-en-scène, the editing, the camera – I could go on and on! And so they fit into the Second Run catalogue perfectly – wonderful films awaiting reappraisal,” says Mehelli Modi, the founder of Second Run DVD. “I’d like to say that the Slovak Film Institute has been extremely supportive of our work, not only in creating beautiful HD masters for us but also helping us put together bonus features, such as on-disc interviews and booklets, which provide the essential context necessary for viewers to understand why we believe these films are important. I’m delighted that Uher’s The Miraculous Virgin will be the first of our Slovak films in 2018 and it will be a world-première Blu-ray release. And there are just so many more Slovak films that I wish we could release…”

Modi is talking about the future, but Second Run has already issued several Slovak films on DVD in the past. What are the criteria applied when choosing specific titles from the history of Slovak cinema? “The answer is simple. The selection is a totally personal choice just like every other fi lm that we have ever released, a very personal curation of cinema. These are films that I’ve seen over the years, love very much and want other people to see and discover them,” explained Modi. “The Czechoslovak New Wave has always been very important for me. Incredible filmmakers were making incredible films. Generally, people have known them as ‚Czech’ films, not even realising that a number of the most important films were actually made by filmmakers who were Slovak… greats like Juraj Herz, Ján Kadár to name just a few whose work we’ve released. And then the Slovak films I’d seen which never received wide distribution abroad. Grečner’s Dragon's Return, the films of Štefan Uher and Dušan Hanák and Jakubisko. And now the responses we get to those films? Each and every one considered exceptional. That’s very thrilling and I feel that actually we are the ones who are lucky to be involved with these very special films.”

The French company Malavida Films has also offered several notable Slovak films on DVD to foreign audiences in the past. For the current year, they have announced a new issue of the digitally restored film by director Dušan Hanák, Rosy Dreams (Ružové sny, 1976).

— text: Daniel Bernát —
photo: The Miraculous Virgin/archive of the SFI —