Synopsis
Marika, a Hungarian widow dressmaker shelters a Jewish boy in her home on the Slovak-Hungarian border during the turbulent years of WW2 and the Wartime Slovak State.
Long synopsis
Marika lives precariously on the outskirts of Bratislava as the Hungarian widow of a Slovak soldier killed on the eastern front. She works for a dressmaker's salon in town that is closing, as in 1942 the wartime Slovak
State deported two-thirds of its Jewish population to German-occupied Poland. At home, she marks "dresses made" with chalk on her front gate and tends to a goat, some chickens and a pig. The field behind the barn has been yielding a small crop of cucumbers.
Marika discovers young Simon, the Jewish tailor's son, hiding in her barn. She resolves to shelter him, even as she is not convinced putting herself in danger is the right thing to do. Simon cannot understand why his father has not written. He wants out. A Slovak officer in the Hlinka Guard, who were Nazi collaborators, takes a shine to Marika and offers to pay rent and cultivate her field. Her first instinct is to rebuff his romantic advances
and keep him away from the barn, lest he turn the boy in. Meanwhile, the senior regional Nazi officer hires Marika to alter some confiscated dresses for his wife and one evening stops in to check on her progress and stay for a cup of coffee.
CAST
Alexandra Borbély (HU/SK)
Nico Klimek (CZ)
Milan Ondrík (SK)
Alexander E. Fennon (GER)
Dénes Ujlaki (HU)
Lili Monori (HU)
Jószef S. Kovács (HU)
Krištof Tobiás Zachar (SK)
Florentin Groll (AT)
Éva Bandor (SK/HU)
Táňa Pauhofová (SK)
László Mátray (HU)
CREW
Story by: Peter Krištúfek (*1973 †2018)
Script: Peter Krištúfek, Iveta Grófová
Dramaturgy: Zuzana Liová
Translations: Tünde Mászáros (HU), Jozef Tancer (GER), Jakub Tlolka (CZ, ENG, SK)
Director: Iveta Grófová
DOP: Martin Štrba
Editor: Martin Malo
Art Director: Tomáš Svoboda
Set designer: Miriam Struhárová
Cosume Designer: Katarína Štrbová Bieliková
Make Up Artists: Andrea Štrbová, Tomáš Richter, Denisa Šponiarová Ivo Strangmüller Alica Dvorská, Viktor Nagy
Score: Matej Hlaváč
Sound Desingers: Tobiáš Potočný, Matej Hlaváč
Visual efects: Tibor Meliš, Tomáš Srovnal
Producers: Zuzana Mistríková, Ondřej Trojan
Co-producers: Sára László, Marcell Geröő, Miloslav Glac
ABOUT THE MOVIE
Genre: Drama / Feature film
Country: Slovakia / Czechia
Co-Production: PubRes (SK), Total HelpArt T.H.A. (CZ)
Co-producers: Campfilm (HU), Radio and Television Slovakia (SK), Miloslav
Glac (DE), Czech Television (CZ)
Development & production supported by
Slovak Audiovisual Fund
Slovak Cultural Minority Fund
The Czech Film
Fund
MOL New Europe Foundation, Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic, Self-Governing Trnava Region, Hungarian Film Incentive