Last night the bitter highlight of the Czech Slovak Film Festival was the tragic Slovak Story about Ján Kuciak.
*New town’s Furphy beer added to the Kafkaesque Irish ☘️ Slovak political atmosphere with Veronika and Rory ...
... as we wrap up our own chat, “how only desperately lonely people are open to dictatorship. That’s the greatest political danger — our loneliness. How we can’t tolerate solitude, and the internet has made that worse. If you can’t be alone, if you can’t tolerate solitude, if you don’t know who you are, then the minute you see somebody else, you’re trying to get them to tell you who you are. You are looking to other people to be who you need them to be, so you don’t see them at all. You can’t see them. So, that’s the end of empathy.”
A former soldier in Slovakia has been jailed for 23 years for the killing of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, a case that sparked mass protests.
Miroslav Marcek, 37, had admitted killing Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova, both aged 27, in February 2018.
Kuciak had been investigating claims of corruption. The crime triggered the resignation of the then-prime minister.
High-profile businessman Marian Kocner and two alleged accomplices, who were also charged, pleaded not guilty.
Against all odds, 2020 turned out to be a great year for Central European films focusing on tax havens and money laundering
Political thriller “The Scumbag,” a fiction film inspired by the real-life murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova due to his investigation into alleged links between the Mafia and senior politicians, has become a box-office hit in Slovakia, striking a chord with folks as the national election looms.
Investigative Journalist, Girlfriend Shot and Killed in Slovakia they were the age of my oldest daughter of the Velvet Revolution in 2018
The film, being sold by Princ at the European Film Market and screening Tuesday, is described as “a story about power, corruption, sex-slavery and the murder of a young journalist and his wife in a young democracy.”
Based on the novel of the same name written by Arpad Soltesz, an investigative journalist and former colleague of Kuciak, the film leads the box office in Slovakia 18 days after its release with a gross of Euros 1.96 million ($2.13 million). It has become a talking point in the political discourse approaching the country’s national election on Feb. 29.
The rights for the novel were acquired by Rudolf Biermann’s production company In Film in May, but by end of July, Biermann and the other producer Mariana Čengel Solčanská were struggling to find financing. When CinemArt boarded as distributor for both Slovakia and Czech Republic, it agreed to finance the majority of the film on one condition: that the film had to be ready for release by the end of February 2020, in time for the elections in Slovakia.
The film was released in Slovakia two weeks before the second anniversary of the murder of Kuciak and Kusnirova on Feb. 21, when an independent group, Initiative for a Decent Slovakia, organized remembrance events in 50 towns and cities across the country.
The response of moviegoers reflected the feeling of national mourning. One viewer said on social media: “I have never experienced this graveyard silence and weeping of people when watching a film. When the end titles came up, everyone in the cinema started to applaud. I had goose bumps.”
Another wrote: “It has been a long time since I had such feelings of anger and sadness after seeing a film. The scene in the editorial office after the death of the journalist is the most powerful moment of the film. I applauded and cried at the same time.”
Slovak Political Thriller ‘The Scumbag’ Becomes Box Office Hit as Election Looms
The film tells the story of a journalist who unravels an incredible web of crime, gangsters and extortion in a small, picturesque country controlled by high-ranking criminals and big business. Inspired the real-life murder of Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova due to his investigation into alleged links between the Mafia and senior politicians, The Scumbagwas released in Slovakia two weeks before the second anniversary of the notorious murder.
One viewer said on social media: “I have never experienced this graveyard silence and weeping of people when watching a film. When the end titles came up, everyone in the cinema started to applaud. I had goose bumps.”
Another wrote: “It has been a long time since I had such feelings of anger and sadness after seeing a film. The scene in the editorial office after the death of the journalist is the most powerful moment of the film. I applauded and cried at the same time.”