{"id":50990,"date":"2026-06-23T16:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iffartfilm.com\/?p=50990"},"modified":"2026-06-23T16:01:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T14:01:53","slug":"short-film-this-room-is-impossible-to-eat-an-adaptation-of-nikol-holzerovas-novella-competes-for-the-blue-angel-award-in-the-international-short-film-competition-at-iff-art-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iffartfilm.com\/en\/blog\/news\/2026\/06\/short-film-this-room-is-impossible-to-eat-an-adaptation-of-nikol-holzerovas-novella-competes-for-the-blue-angel-award-in-the-international-short-film-competition-at-iff-art-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Short film This Room is Impossible to Eat \u2014 an adaptation of Nikol Holzerov\u00e1’s novella \u2014 competes for the Blue Angel award in the International Short Film Competition at IFF Art Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

The short live-action film This Room is Impossible to Eat<\/em> directed by Em\u00edlia Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1 \u2014 a sensitive adaptation of the eponymous novella by writer Nikol Holzerov\u00e1 about a growing-up Tereza and about what a child cannot name \u2014 is part of the Shorts II block in the International Short Film Competition of the 32nd IFF Art Film Ko\u0161ice. The film, shot on 35 mm film stock, was made as a graduation project at the Academy of Performing Arts (V\u0160MU) in Bratislava. Both festival screenings \u2014 on Saturday 20 June at 16.30 and on Monday 22 June at 10.30 \u2014 were accompanied by an introduction and a discussion in the presence of director Em\u00edlia Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1 and producer Marianna Vadovi\u010dov\u00e1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For director Em\u00edlia Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1<\/strong>, the choice of the literary source was deliberate. \u201cAt school I started flirting with the idea of choosing themes for my films not only from my personal life, which is the classic approach in school. I read a lot, I love Slovak and Czech authors. When I read Nikol Holzerov\u00e1’s book This Room is Impossible to Eat, I said to myself that this is one of those small books that deserve to come to light also in film form,\u201d<\/em> Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1<\/strong> said. It is not her first adaptation \u2014 previously, as a school exercise, she adapted the short story Pr\u00e1zdniny from Du\u0161o Martin\u010dok’s collection Niekto sa n\u00e1jde<\/em>, which in the form of her short film Tento divn\u00fd de\u0148<\/em> premiered in Krak\u00f3w.<\/p>\n

Holzerov\u00e1’s novella is written from the perspective of the heroine in three age periods \u2014 at 12, 15 and 18. Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1<\/strong>chose a different approach in the short film, but kept the child and teen perspective. \u201cIt is essential, because you can see how the perception of the same situation changes when one is twelve, fifteen and eighteen. Really, it is not the same. The child does not look at the older man in the same way at twelve as at eighteen. That’s probably why Nikol chose this approach,\u201d<\/em> the director explained.<\/p>\n

The film builds on visual metaphors borrowed directly from the book. \u201cMany of them we could simply take and transfer to the screen \u2014 and they have enormous power. Nikol manages to create a feeling of unease, longing or imprisonment not through descriptive narration but precisely through those metaphors, which evoke the emotion in us more strongly than if she had described it directly,\u201d<\/em> the director said. One of the strongest scenes is the plaster in the heroine’s mouth \u2014 and in this case it was real plaster, not a prop. With set designer Nat\u00e1lia Min\u00e1rikov\u00e1, Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1<\/strong> spent a long time working on it: \u201cSomeone made a wall, but it didn’t look good. Fortunately we had a real set \u2014 and that’s what ended up in the final cut. Yes, she had real plaster in her mouth. But we had water and basins ready, where she could spit it out. She did it,\u201d<\/em> Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1<\/strong> revealed.<\/p>\n

She approached the delicate topic aware of certain risks. \u201cWith every film one fears what will come out of it. But I knew that the material was extremely good \u2014 and so was the casting. Vikt\u00f3ria \u0160uplatov\u00e1, who played fifteen-year-old Tereza, and Ady Hajdu, who played the teacher, have known each other for many years. Ady, as he says, used to push her in the pram when she was little. It was a little odd for her, but partly thanks to that a safe space was created on set \u2014 we had close relationships and supported each other,\u201d<\/em> she said. From today’s perspective, however, she would do some things differently: \u201cA project like this would require consultation with a psychologist, perhaps a child or teen psychologist, and there should be an intimacy coordinator on set. In our case this was not possible \u2014 but it certainly should not be done without them,\u201d<\/em> Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1<\/strong> added.<\/p>\n

The path of literary adaptation Ondria\u0161ov\u00e1<\/strong> wants to keep pursuing. \u201cI don’t need to explore this particular topic any further at the moment \u2014 once one has dealt with it, one wants to leave it alone for a while. But I definitely plan to keep adapting literature. There are plenty of excellent Slovak and Czech authors who deserve to be discovered in film adaptations,\u201d<\/em> said the director, who admitted that her next title is already \u201cin her sights\u201d.<\/p>\n