Sunrise Hotel was given its world premiere in 2016 at the prestigious film festival IDFA in Amsterdam. This mosaic-like situational drama is set in the town of Čierna nad Tisou, once known as “the Golden Gate of Socialism”, now seeming more like a dreary outpost of the EU than the sometime pride of socialist Slovakia. In the middle of a housing estate that looks frozen in time, not far from the transshipment station, we witness the personal dramas of four characters fraught with socioeconomic disillusionment. Their lives spin in a vicious circle of false hope and humble longings for a better tomorrow. Their apparent imprisonment in their dismal surroundings dashes any hopes of breaking through the shackles of fate. Nevertheless, they continue to seek ways to escape from everyday reality, often verging on the boundaries of legality and common sense, acting on their own hook in a non-functional system that pins them in their place. Even so, their stories are human and expressive, if not always socially acceptable.