On Saturday, 20 June 2026 at 14.30, in the Slovak Season section of the 32nd IFF Art Film Košice, the hybrid puppet comedy Still Standing, Still Stuffed, directed by Andrej Kolenčík and Juraj Šlauka, had its world premiere at Kino Úsmev in Košice. The seventy-minute film was made as a conscious return to three legendary puppet characters of Slovak television production from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and is addressed primarily to the adult audience that grew up with these heroes. The premiere was accompanied by an introduction and discussion in the presence of a large creative team. The second and final festival screening will be held by IFF Art Film on Tuesday, 23 June at 16.00 at Kulturpark JOJ Cinema.
For director Andrej Kolenčík, the world premiere is an extraordinary moment: “It is the very first time the film is being shown to audiences, so for the first time we will see their reactions. And that first screening will never be repeated.” The characters of Kuko, Drobček and Raťafák Plachta were chosen for personal reasons, he says: “With co-director Juraj Šlauka, we grew up on the children’s TV programmes of the 1980s and 1990s, where it was Kuko and Raťafák Plachta who appeared most. As for Drobček, I experienced him personally also at kindergarten performances with Ms Tomanová. In the history of our puppet production there are many more such characters; we chose the ones who were closest to us,” Kolenčík said.
According to Kolenčík, the film is primarily addressed to an adult audience: “We wanted to take that generation back to childhood for a moment, so they could live one more adventure with these heroes — in a more modern rendition, but with the essence that was there.” In terms of genre, the film is a deliberate mix. “For me personally it is a hybrid film. A comedy, but it also has sci-fi and horror elements, in places it is almost a social drama when the puppets lament about their lives and futures, and it has satirical elements. It is such a cocktail,” he explained. The universal reach of the film he sees in its existential theme: “Those characters come to terms with their existence, their past and their self-worth — and for me the film is also about hope and about never giving up.”
Co-director Juraj Šlauka admitted his curiosity before the premiere: “Most of the people who worked on it have not yet seen it. I am terribly curious how they will react. I have no idea whether the film works in this moment or not.” He too considers the film a satire and according to him, the deeper layers also include themes that he himself does not feel as set in advance: “Mostly things I am dealing with at the time spill into the screenplay unintentionally. And so mid-life crises and similar things appeared there, which these little fellows have.” For audiences he has a simple call: “This may be the last time these three will be seen. After that they will, I think, disappear.”
Puppeteer Boris Bačík was one of the actors operating Kuko. “Kuko is not operated by one person — at least two, and it is good to have it that way, because Kuko is a black-theatre puppet. His home space is black theatre, where puppeteers can move freely. In the open space in which we shot this film, it was very demanding to keep ourselves out of the camera’s view,” he explained. He speaks of the coordination as of Siamese twins — two brains in one body. The strongest moment of the shoot stayed with him unequivocally: “When old friends Kuko, Raťafák and Drobček were brought together again after years.”
Patrícia Jarjabková Garajová is linked to Kuko by a long-standing acting friendship from her television and theatre years: “For long years I was Kuko’s friend, in the good and the bad. I have a strong relationship with him also as with a real friend.” On the technical side she finds it magical that three different types of puppets have been brought together into one scene: “Of them, only Raťafák is a real puppet that can also walk on grass — Kuko and Drobček must be operated. It was extraordinarily demanding to put them together and shoot for example a scene of Kuko running after a trolleybus.” In the message of the film she sees a reminder of the inner child: “Many people, when they grow up, seem to forget about their inner child and become merely dry adults. But that child is in each of us. Kuko reminds us that we should believe in miracles, and if we long for something deeply, we should go after it. Whether we are small or big.”
The music for the film was composed by David Kollar, who previously collaborated with Šlauka on the film Punk je hnedand recently composed the music for the film Miki. “After that mafia darkness I wanted to do another film — and Kuko came,” he said. The music works with 1980s synthesizers and older rhythm machines (Yamaha DX7, Juno) and ranges widely across genres. “There is also dark, horror, action music in it. For me it is a crazy horror comedy,” Kollár added. He sees in the film a combination of commercial potential and an art-house dimension. “The younger generation likes these creepy, off-the-wall little characters. The whole work of the puppeteers is extraordinarily hard and creative. The film also has further layers about what it means to be old, unneeded, unwanted.”
Animatronics designer Ľuboš Zalibera created for the film an animatronic replica of Drobček, who in the film “drives” a retrofitted pedal Moskvich. “We made the animatronic replica with four axes so that it could lean forward and backward and move its arms and head. Thanks to that it was not just a static object sitting in the car, but a puppet that suddenly really came alive,” he explained. He 3D-scanned the original Drobček and the modern replica was then made by 3D printing. “So in the film there are essentially two Drobčeks — the original marionette and a modern animatronic stand-in; they look the same,” Zalibera revealed. The work on the film was, according to him, also a return: “I remember Drobček with Matelko, and Raťafák, and Kuko too. We grew up on them and it was beautiful. It was precisely that nostalgia that added enthusiasm to the project.”
The second and final festival screening of Still Standing, Still Stuffed will be held by IFF Art Film on Tuesday, 23 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, 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
