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Slovak State Film Grew Out of a Dark Place, Ji.hlava Festival Historian Says


Ji.hlava Film Festival’s Slovak Films of the 40s program shows ‘art can be created’ even under Hitler’s boot.

The dark origins of modern Slovak film are seldom discussed in Slovakia, says historian Petra Hanakova – and that’s precisely why she dedicated herself to digging through archives to unearth the unlikely wave of movies made there during World War II. Filmmakers of the period were remarkably productive for a wartime economy, and got busy shooting an incredible range of work, from 1944’s animated, Disney-style “The Mysterious Old Man” by Viktor Kubal, about the wonders of electrification, to lyrical tributes to timeless peasant landscapes that are notably missing any hint of politics. Bielik’s 1942 film “Disappearing Romance” is one of the earliest of many from the region to focus Janosik, in this iteration in documentary form as it chronicles artists crafting and decorating shepherds’ axes, the symbol of the outlaw hero.

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