Ceremonial awarding of the festival's honorary prizes with the participation of the general public in the park Kulturpark.

This year’s laureate of its honorary Actor’s Mission Award is the exceptional Slovak actress Anna Šišková - one of the most distinctive acting personalities of her generation, a Czech Lion winner and a two-time recipient of the Slovak DOSKY theatre award.

Anna (Anka) Šišková was born on 30 June 1960 in Žilina and grew up in the Vrátna Valley near Terchová, where her parents managed a hotel. After graduating from secondary school, she studied at the Faculty of Education in Trnava. During her studies, she became a member of the drama ensemble of the Jonáš Záborský Theatre. She subsequently pursued acting professionally, first at the Theatre for Children and Youth in Trnava (now the Ján Palárik Theatre), and from the 1990s as a permanent member of the ensemble of Astorka Korzo ’90 Theatre in Bratislava, where she continues to perform to this day.

She gained significant international recognition for her portrayal of Mária in the Czech-Slovak film Divided We Fall (Musíme si pomáhat, 2000), directed by Jan Hřebejk. For this performance, she won the 2001 Czech Lion Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Three years later, in 2004, she received another Czech Lion nomination for her supporting role in Cruel Joys (Kruté radosti, 2003), directed by Juraj Nvota. Her most recent Czech Lion nomination came in 2018 for her supporting role in Filthy (Špina, 2017), directed by her daughter, Tereza Nvotová. For the same performance, she was also nominated for the Sun in a Net Awards in the category of Best Supporting Actress.

Anna Šišková’s notable film work also includes Landscape (Krajinka, 2000) and The City of the Sun (Slnečný štát, 2005), both directed by Martin Šulík, as well as numerous other Slovak and Czech film and television productions.

Alongside her film work, Anna Šišková has long been one of the leading actresses at the Astorka Korzo ’90 Theatre. For her exceptional performances at this theatre she has received two DOSKY Awards – the Slovak theatre prize of the season: in 2001 for the role of the Young Woman in Neil LaBute’s play Bash, and in 2003 for the role of Celia in T. S. Eliot’s play The Cocktail Party. Her long and consistent stage work places her among the most highly regarded theatre actresses of her generation.

Anna Šišková is the mother of actress Dorota Nvotová and director and actress Tereza Nvotová, who has gained international acclaim for the films Nightsiren (Golden Leopard in the Cineasti del presente section, Locarno IFF 2022) and Father (Bronze Horse for Best Film at the Stockholm IFF 2025, with last year’s Actor’s Mission laureate Milan Ondrík in the lead role). The family thus represents one of the most distinctive creative lineages in contemporary Slovak cinema.

“Anna Šišková is one of those acting personalities who have brought to Slovak and Czech cinema an exceptional combination of fragility and inner truth. Both her film and theatre work are characterised by a quiet, unsentimental approach to the character – an acting style that has not given itself over to effect, but to authentic experience and the small details of humanity. Whether in the iconic role of Mária in Divided We Fall, for which she won the Czech Lion and which was nominated for an Academy Award, or in dozens of roles at the Astorka Korzo ’90 Theatre and in the films of Juraj Nvota and Martin Šulík, Anna Šišková proves that great acting does not need grand gestures. By presenting the Actor’s Mission Award, IFF Art Film honours not only her specific roles, but above all the attitude with which she approaches the acting profession – as a calling that connects generations of audiences on both sides of the border,” said the festival’s artistic director, Martin Palúch.