The Golden Camera Award of the 32nd IFF Art Film, which the festival has been giving since 2001 for an outstanding contribution to cinema, was received on Friday, 19 June 2026 at Kunsthalle Košice by the director general of the Slovak Film Institute (SFÚ) Peter Dubecký. In a festival interview he opened the full arc of his nearly thirty years of work at SFÚ — from saving the audiovisual heritage in the difficult 1990s, through the launch of systematic digitisation, to the present-day presence of Slovak film classics on both public-service and private television in a technical standard comparable to Western Europe.
The award, which was presented to him at the opening ceremony by Czech director Fero Fenič, Dubecký sees as a collective recognition. “I really thank Art Film not only for remembering me and giving me this incredible award. I see the Golden Camera as recognition of the Film Institute itself and especially of all my colleagues, whom I also thank for the work they do,” said Peter Dubecký.
The journey to today’s SFÚ began in difficult conditions, he says. “When I took over as director, the institute was starting from scratch. We were relocating and saving the building as well as the negatives and security materials that were at Koliba. The agreement at the time was that the materials would be stored for thirty years in unsuitable conditions. It was a very complex process, but we managed to weather it. We moved the materials out of Koliba — and that was the rescue, because the studio along with the documentation and economics departments were later hit by fires and floods,”Dubecký explained.
Out of this “first aid” grew the project of systematic rescue and restoration of the audiovisual heritage, which has been running since 2006, that is for twenty years. In 2013 SFÚ became part of a European Union project thanks to which it built digitisation facilities. “I am glad that all governments — eleven ministers I have experienced — accepted these important things. Audiences today see the result on both public-service and private TV. Digitised, restored films are being broadcast at a standard comparable to Western Europe,” Dubecký said. The restoration project has been approved by the government until 2034.
According to Dubecký, the current state of restoration stands at approximately 80 percent for feature films and 60 percent for the entire project. Animated films are fully completed, documentary and commissioned films are progressing. “The Slovak Film Institute has nine titles among the top twenty-five most-watched films on television, which is wonderful. These are classics audiences will return to — once they no longer see them scratched. Today’s screens have such resolution that you really must deliver perfect picture and perfect sound,” Dubecký added.
Part of SFÚ’s mission is also the physical distribution of Slovak films in a carrier edition — from the 1940s to the 1980s. “We have released more than half a million carriers of Slovak films. It has met great response and publicity. The DVD as a carrier is slowly disappearing, but Blu-ray has become a cinephile tool. And paradoxically, our films on Blu-ray are released not only at home but also abroad — in the Czech Republic, in France, in the United Kingdom and even in the United States,” Dubecký revealed.
Among book editions, Dubecký highlighted the preparation of the second volume of the monumental History of Slovak Cinema in cooperation with Prof. Václav Macek — covering the period from 1970. He also noted that the film monthly Film.sk has moved from print to online. “These are things the world and the times bring. We have to perceive it that way,” he stated.
The importance of festivals such as IFF Art Film in today’s Slovak audiovisual landscape is, according to Dubecký, fundamental. “Running a festival today is extremely difficult. Public funding is always fluctuating and unpredictable, three-year grants which used to be available no longer really work. Košice, however, is excellent for organising a festival: Kulturpark, Kunsthalle, Kino Úsmev… Those five or six halls are perfectly sufficient. In the digital era you can find a lot of films online, but many essential art-house titles you cannot. If someone is really looking for a specific film or director, they have a chance to see it at a festival,” he explained. In the same spirit he mentioned the Bratislava Kino Lumière, run by SFÚ and visited by approximately 120,000 viewers a year. Alongside premieres of independent Slovak producers, it also has the archival hall Filmotéka and access to collection funds.
Asked whether, as a long-standing “man behind the scenes” of Slovak film, he had ever been tempted by his own creative work, Dubecký summed it up soberly. “I see myself rather as a manager, an audiovisual public official with a certain producer overlap — which is kind and pleasant to have. The Slovak Film Institute is co-producer of almost eighty films. Many documentary, feature, animated and student films would not have been made without SFÚ. There too I have the chance to enter the dramaturgy and look for the shape in which a film can stand. To direct creative work — screenwriting, directing or otherwise — I have only contributed a little, most recently with the monograph on Miloslav Luther together with Peter Michalovič,” Peter Dubecký concluded.
The 32nd IFF Art Film Košice continues until Thursday, 25 June 2026. The complete festival programme can be found at aff.cinepass.sk.
The 32nd IFF ART FILM is being held with the support of:
Main organizer: ART FILM FEST s.r.o.
Co-organizers: City of Košice, K13 – Košice Cultural Centres, Visit Košice, ART FILM FEST, n.o.
With the financial support of: the Slovak Audiovisual Fund
The project was co-financed by the Košice Self-governing Region from the Terra Incognita program
Main partners: CODES Brand House, H2O FUND SICAV, Forstav
Automotive partner: AUTO-VALAS
Official hotel: Hotel Yasmin
Main media partners: TV JOJ, Pravda, Eurotelevízia
Sponsors: U. S. Steel Košice, ANTIK Telecom, Kino Úsmev, LOKO TRANS Media, CORE Labs, Technical University of Košice
Technological partners: NOV, ZEBRA, Deutsche Telekom Systems Solutions Slovakia, DELTA OnLine, ARICOMA, Datacomp
Official suppliers: DKC Veritas, PLOOM, DOMOS SLOVAKIA, Reštaurácia Contessa, Natura, Kinley, Budweiser Budvar, Julius Meinl
Official wine: KubBo Select, Ostrožovič
Media partners: JOJ play, JOJ 24, Film Europe Media Company, Rádio KOŠICE, Aktuality.sk, Forbes, Startitup.sk, Korzár, Slovenka, SITA, TASR, Mediaboard, AHOJ TV, See & Go, BigMedia, Kino Sterio, Košice City Guide, Košice V Skratke, MOJAkultura.sk, Česko-Slovenská filmová databáze – ČSFD, Filmsk.sk, diva.sk, koktejl.sk, zenskyweb.sk, Naše Košice
Partners: JOJ Cinema, Jojko, Slovak Film Institute, WITKOWITZ SLOVAKIA, DDDental, CK TUI ReiseCenter Slovensko, Taper, ECO Technologies, Aupark Shopping Center Košice, Košice Public Transport Company, Košice Airport, YumEarth, Rent2Eat, CPK Transport, iWish.sk, Kvety Garomi, Hair Factory Košice, Face up! Studio by Michaela Petroci, Panta Rhei, ARTFORUM, LOCAL NOMAD, East-Slovak Museum in Košice, MIHYRING
