In the Slovak Season section of the 32nd IFF Art Film Košice, the sixty-minute documentary portrait The Invisible Jan Gogola directed by Marek Janičík had its festival screening on Monday, 22 June at Kino Úsmev. The film is dedicated to the Czech dramaturg and pedagogue Jan Gogola Sr., who over more than half a century contributed to over sixty titles and taught screenwriting and dramaturgy at FAMU in Prague, the Academy of Performing Arts in Banská Bystrica and JAMU in Brno. The next festival screening will be held by IFF Art Film on Thursday, 25 June at 16.00 at Kulturpark JOJ Cinema.
For director Marek Janičík, Jan Gogola was not just the subject of the film but also his own pedagogue. “Jan Gogola was my pedagogue of dramaturgy and screenwriting — and not only mine, but of many other screenwriters. He was always someone I really looked forward to. When he retired at eighty and stopped teaching, I decided I would like to preserve his legacy — but above all to introduce him to the public, because he is literally invisible and yet has an enormous amount of work behind him,” Janičík said.
A classic TV portrait was something Janičík wanted to avoid — and he used the very profession of the protagonist to do so. “I had in front of me an expert in the truest sense, one of the best dramaturgs in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. I decided I would shoot the film about him in such a way that he would do the dramaturgy of it for me almost live. The viewer becomes a witness of how the dramaturgy of this film about him comes into being,” he explained. For the consultations he brought the professor both shot and pre-edited parts of the film and they looked together for what worked, what didn’t and how to push it further.
The form was later extended with another commentator. “I consulted not only with him, but also with his son Jan Gogola Jr., who is also a very significant professor as well as a director and dramaturg. It ended up so that the two of them sit together, watch the film about the professor that is still being made — and constantly comment on it. They are very witty people, they tease each other, it’s funny. Hopefully the audience won’t get bored — even though it’s a film about dramaturgy. Because when you say dramaturgy, people start to yawn at the word itself,” Janičík said with a smile.
Making the film was for the director also an unexpected school. “Even though I hold a state exam in dramaturgy as Gogola’s student, I have to admit it was only through this film that I really learned what dramaturgy actually is,” Janičíkadmits. His close relationship to the professor had on the documentarian an ambivalent impact — one can become “too kind”. “But anyone who knows Mr. Gogola knows that he is someone who is always fun, who has never in his life angered anyone — and I think that is precisely why he has had such a successful career, because it was so good to work with him. The portrait is therefore as he himself is: kind and authentic,” the director added.
Presenting the film at IFF Art Film has a personal dimension for Janičík. “I have a very close relationship to Art Film. I come from the Trenčín region, where the festival was born, and I have been a regular visitor. In 2011 I premiered my first film here — and what happened was that I found my wife here, with whom I have two children. They are with me at the festival now, so we are a little bit of an Art Film family,” Marek Janičík said.
A repeat screening of The Invisible Jan Gogola will be held by IFF Art Film on Thursday, 25 June at 16.00 at Kulturpark JOJ Cinema. The complete programme of the 32nd IFF Art Film Košice (19 – 25 June 2026), including the Slovak Season section and festival Cinepasses, 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, Fors – stav
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, Wallonie-Bruxelles International.be, 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
