Wakey Wakey with Extremism

The biggest shock following the March parliamentary election in Slovakia was without a doubt presented by the significant rise of its extremist and far-right political parties. What comes to mind first when we hear the word extremism is probably the unpunished use of the Nazi salute by individuals in pressed uniforms. However, extremism can manifest itself in many different, sometimes even inconspicuous signs of religious, racial, ethnic, or sexual intolerance, adverting to the “traditional values of Christianity” and the “traditional (=white heterosexual) family”. TheDepartment of Audio Visual Studies at the Film and TelevisionFacultyof the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava has therefore decided to launch an educational editorial project called Images (against) extremism. The project aims at confronting current as well as past representations of extremism by touching on eight key topics: racial intolerance, religious intolerance, nationalism, political power, holocaust, media manipulation, refugees and immigrants, and fear of sexual education and otherness. The result will be a DVD consisting of short films made by the students of the Academy of Performing Arts as well as of films taken from the archives of Slovak Film Institute, aimed mainly at high-school students – potential first-time voters. The project and films will be introduced by Eva Filová, a film historian and teacher. The project Images (against) extremism was supported by the Slovak Audiovisual Fund.

This Is Not a Game
Dominik Jursa, SK, 2014, 22 min.

In case there still exists a loser who hasn’t completed his two years of compulsory military service, the paramilitary organization bearing the name Slovak conscripts is most willing to help and teach him a thing or two about discipline and obedience to the leader.

A Fire of Roma Origin
Dominik Jursa, SK, 2013, 14 min.

When a huge fire destroyed a substantial part of The Krásna Hôrka Castle in March 2012, there was a groundswell of hatred towards the Roma population living in the nearby village. The report from a sequence of events loaded with emotion ponders political manipulation, propaganda, demagogy, and mob hysteria.

Herstory
Alena Kurajdová, SK, 2010, 16 min.

Three stories evolving against the backdrop of the preparations for and course of the first Slovak Rainbow PRIDE. Where are our roots? And where are we headed? These are not only empty rhetorical questions, but rather steps towards finding one’s own (human and sexual) identity.