Hey You Slovaks!

Robert Kirchhoff, 2002, SK, 48 min., OV

An authentic mosaic of naked feelings without any sensibility, a cold, weakening picture, monologues depicting the sentiment that has befallen Slovakia. The documentary has accommodated the speech of people, the countryside to the life in Slovakia. A relatively exoteric structure connects sociologically representative portraits of contemporary Slovaks, and their fragmented testimony. The main recourse of this documentary includes the topic of poverty, abysmal disappointment about the development of recent years, collective complex of inferiority and value instability. A portrait mosaic of people from different parts of Slovakia ten years after the independent state has been created. The author tried to disclose the basic motif of Slovakian motivation and their conception of life, both fulfilled or dreamt of. Many cases of poverty are often caused by incapability, or lack of courage to overcome the communist circle. Everybody is filled with disillusion and resignation. The Bolsheviks listening to the brass bands, Slovak dissidents walking through an open-air museum, old laborers imitating the job in a closed down glass factory. The unemployed are waiting and waiting in their flats, the army repatriates are dreaming of leaving for some better place. Homeless people, single mothers, TV contest heroes, Czech underground philosopher, panel neighborhood, trains, pubs, empty factories, that's Slovakia. 

The film will be introduced by the director Robert Kirchhoff, who will answer questions in the discuccion after the screening.