A woman who carries to Everest not only herself but also her own wounded past. A filmmaker who travelled four continents to find people refusing to give up even where the world is visibly changing before our eyes. Three puppet legends that refuse to be forgotten. The Slovak films at the 32nd IFF Art Film (19 – 25 June 2026 in Košice) will deliver eight premieres altogether – five world and three Slovak – and they are united by one thing: people who don’t give up.
This year’s domestic line-up is unusually personal and bold. Slovak films appear in all four competitions, in the Slovak Season, in the children’s programme as well as in the industry programme – and almost all of them are bound by themes of survival, memory and the courage to go on. Here is a guide to the best of what domestic cinema brings to Košice.
In the competitions
Something is breathing in that land
The mysterious drama Wirbel, the feature debut of Tomáš Hubáček (Czechia/Slovakia), will open the festival with the story of a man who inherits an old house in solitude – and with it a secret of the land that remembers more than we do. When the wells dry up and the fields stop bearing fruit, Martin understands that the land cannot simply be abandoned. This hypnotic film about the power of place and forgotten folk wisdom competes in the International Feature Film Competition and is nominated for the FIPRESCI Prize.
World premiere
Screening: 21 June at 7:30 p.m., Kulturpark JOJ Play
“Do you know what high school you want to apply to?”
An innocent question that triggers something that should never have begun. Emília Ondriašová’s short film This Room Cannot Be Eaten is uncomfortably quiet about grooming – and precisely for that reason terrifying: it shows how invisible steps become a trap that the child names with the word love. The film is included in the International Short Film Competition.
Screenings: 20 June at 4:30 p.m., Kunsthalle · 22 June at 10:30 a.m., Kunsthalle
She was eight when her sister disappeared
The family kept silent about her for twenty-seven years. Lea Podhradská took a camera and set out to find the truth – only to discover that everyone in the family tells it differently. Her personal documentary My Father’s Daughter (Apám lánya), about how memories bend so we can live with them, will have its Slovak premiere at Art Film. It competes in the International Competition of Central and Eastern European Films.
Screenings: 21 June at 4:00 p.m., Kulturpark JOJ Cinema · 24 June at 11:00 a.m., Kino Veritas
From four continents where the world is visibly changing
From the coast of North Carolina, where the ocean swallows houses, through the Mongolian desert and the parched Australia to the melting ice of Greenland – Tomáš Krupa filmed across four continents to find people who refuse to give up even where the world is literally falling apart. We Have to Survive is not a film about despair, but about courage and the human capacity to adapt to a world changing under the pressure of climate change. It competes in the International Competition of Central and Eastern European Films and is nominated for the FIPRESCI Prize.
Slovak premiere
Screenings: 20 June at 7:00 p.m., Kunsthalle · 22 June at 11:00 a.m., Kino Veritas
World Premieres and Slovak Season
Centrum periférií — can poetry be a weapon?
In 2024 Košice briefly became the capital of European poetry slam, and Matej Baník was there to film it. His documentary Centrum periférií is a celebration of the word and of solidarity at a time when nationalism is rising in Europe again.
World premiere
Screening: 22 June at 7:00 p.m., Tabačka Kulturfabrik – Main Hall
Everest: Mother Mountain — the first Slovak woman on the top of the world
No Slovak woman had ever stood on top of the world. Lucia Janičová decided to change that – and took with her not only her love for her daughter but also her own past marked by violence. Everest: Mother Mountain (UK/Slovakia) by director Paul Diffley is about how, from pain, one can climb higher than Everest. The world premiere will take place with the personal attendance of Lucia, her daughter Adelka, and the director – one of the strongest evenings of the festival.
World premiere
Screenings: 20 June at 5:30 p.m., Kino Úsmev · 21 June at 11:00 a.m., Kino Veritas
1 + 1 + 1 — yes, no, don’t know
Yes. No. Don’t know. Three characters, three stances on the world, shot on 16 mm – Ondřej Vavrečka’s experiment 1 + 1 + 1 about a civilisation obsessed with progress, in which what was new yesterday is old tomorrow.
Slovak premiere
Screening: 21 June at 8:30 p.m., Záhradné kino
Kuko, Drobček & Raťafák strike again
Once every child knew them, then they vanished from the screens. Now the cult puppets return to find out whether they still have a place in today’s world – and whether they can still stick together. Kuko, Drobček & Raťafák Strike Again by the directorial duo of Andrej Kolenčík and Juraj Šlauka is a comedy full of nostalgia and self-irony. It hits cinemas in summer 2026.
World premiere
Screenings: 20 June at 2:30 p.m., Kino Úsmev · 23 June at 4:00 p.m., Kulturpark JOJ Cinema
Invisible Jan Gogola
He is present in everything, yet you don’t see him. Marek Janičík’s Invisible Jan Gogola is a portrait of the legendary dramaturg who, in front of the viewers’ eyes, in effect dramaturgs himself – a tribute to the invisible profession without which films would have no soul.
Slovak premiere
Screenings: 22 June at 5:30 p.m., Kino Úsmev · 25 June at 4:00 p.m., Kulturpark JOJ Cinema
The Last Season — a fragile summer drama from Zemplínska Šírava
The last summer at Zemplínska Šírava. A promising boxer and a lifeguard girl, both at a crossroads, find in each other the courage to step into the unknown. Pavol Hirjak’s The Last Season is a fragile summer drama about how growing up means taking responsibility for one’s own life.
World premiere
Screenings: 23 June at 2:00 p.m., Kino Veritas · 25 June at 3:00 p.m., Kunsthalle
Actor’s Mission Award: Anna Šišková
Filth — a performance you can’t shake
Seventeen-year-old Lena’s world falls apart and the adults around her seem to have gone deaf. Anna Šišková, in Tereza Nvotová’s film Filth (Slovakia/Czechia), plays a mother who, in trying to protect her family, fails to hear her own daughter’s cry for help – a performance that stays with you. This year’s Actor’s Mission laureate returns with it to one of her strongest roles.
Screening: 23 June at 11:30 a.m., Kino Úsmev
Milan Lasica Award: Vlado Müller
The honorary Milan Lasica Award will be presented at the 32nd IFF Art Film to Vlado Müller. To honour him, we are screening two films by director Martin Hollý from the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, in which Müller excels in leading roles – both are today part of the Golden Fund of Slovak Cinema and are brought to Košice by the Slovak Film Institute.
Custom Tailored Death — an acting duet of Müller and Kiš
A distinctly local variation on the Viscontian theme of a dying social class – its property, work ethic and human dignity – and at the same time an existential story about what social death looked like in the twentieth century. Martin Hollý’s 1979 film is above all an acting duet between Vlado Müller and Milan Kiš – an interplay of two perfectly calibrated characters, voices, physical presences and worldviews. Craftsmanship-wise it is a beautifully made period piece with excellent dialogue, fragments of which resonate surprisingly strongly even today. Also in the cast: Květa Fialová, Juraj Ďurdiak, Štefan Kožka, Olga Želenská and Norbert Jaborek.
Screenings: 21 June at 5:30 p.m., Kino Úsmev · 24 June at 4:00 p.m., Kino Úsmev – Impulz Hall
Signum laudis — a corporal in the final days of World War I
This dramatic story, set in the final days of the First World War, is an uncompromising indictment of its cruelty and senselessness. The main character of Hollý’s 1980 film is Corporal Adalbert Hoferik (Vlado Müller) – a soldier with heart and soul, boundlessly loyal to the army and the monarchy, which he is willing to defend to his last gasp. His exaggerated sense of duty and at times blind faith in ideals will, however, prove fatal for him in the end. Also in the cast: Josef Bláha, Ilja Prachař, Radovan Lukavský, Jiří Kodet, Ladislav Frej and Pavel Zedníček.
Screening: 22 June at 4:00 p.m., Kino Úsmev – Impulz Hall
For the youngest
Princess a Hundred Times Different
Every morning she wakes up as someone else, and she has one week left until her eighteenth birthday. Miloslav Šmídmajer’s fairy tale Princess a Hundred Times Different about Princess Stella and the shepherd Johan reminds children and adults alike that the strongest remedy is the courage to be oneself.
Screenings: 23 June at 9:00 a.m., Kunsthalle · 25 June at 10:00 a.m., Kulturpark JOJ Cinema
AF Industry
Via Slovakia — 1,870 km and the launch of the book
He stepped off his path to find a new one. Slavomír Duchovič walked 1,870 kilometres along the borders of Slovakia in 82 days – and along with the beauty of the domestic nature, he also overcame his own addiction and turbulent past. Víťazoslav Chrappa’s documentary Via Slovakia is proof that we carry the hardest terrain within ourselves. The screening is accompanied by the launch of the book of the same name by the author Slavomír Duchovič – the godmother of the book will be Lucia Janičová, the first Slovak woman on Mount Everest and a guest of the festival’s Industry programme.
Screening: 20 June at 8:30 p.m., Záhradné kino
The memory of Slovak film – SFI: Family Film Silver
And finally – Slovak film also has its memory. The SFI: Family Film Silver section brings back to the screen the digitally restored gems of the Golden Fund (names such as Paľo Bielik, Ján Kadár, Peter Solan and Rudolf Urc) – a reminder of what the Slovak film tradition is and from where it draws.
Seven days, one city and dozens of stories about people who did not give up. The full programme and festival cinepasses for the whole week in Košice are available at aff.cinepass.sk – just pick which story you will enter first.
The 32nd IFF ART FILM is made possible thanks to the support of:
Main organizer: ART FILM FEST s.r.o.
Co-organizers: Mesto Košice, K13 – Košické kultúrne centrá, Visit Košice, ART FILM FEST, n.o.
With the financial support of: Audiovizuálny fond
The project was co-financed by the Košice Self-governing Region from the Terra Incognita program
Main partners: CODES Brand House, H2O FUND SICAV
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, Technická univerzita v Košiciach
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, Slovenský filmový ústav, WITKOWITZ SLOVAKIA, DDDental, CK TUI ReiseCenter Slovensko, Taper, ECO Technologies, Aupark Shopping Center Košice, Dopravný podnik mesta Košice, Letisko Košice, YumEarth, Rent2Eat, CPK Transport, iWish.sk, Kvety Garomi, Hair Factory Košice, Face up! Studio by Michaela Petroci, Panta Rhei, ARTFORUM, LOCAL NOMAD, Východoslovenské múzeum v Košiciach, MIHYRING
Gastronomic partners: Pub u Kohúta, OhniskO Fire Dining & Brew Bar, MAIKO SUSHI, Kaviareň Slávia, El Nacional, Tabačka Kulturfabrik, Casa Trade – Casablanca cafe, La Hacienda, Red Velvet Cake Bar, Macarons Košice, Savour Patisserie
