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Slovak premiere

Bamse and the Secret of the Sea is a film about feeling like an outsider and the joy of finally finding someone who understands you. A grand adventure that takes Bamse, Lille Skutt and Skalman out onto open water, to the other side of the globe and deep down to the bottom of the sea. We will meet Captain Buster, who is prepared to do anything to earn the title Terror of the Seas. Nothing can stop him from trying to be the toughest on the ocean. Not even the world’s largest sea monster.

Bamse and the Secret of the Sea is from a series of animated feature films by director Christian Ryltenia about Bamse the teddy bear, who has been known in Sweden for generations (creator of the character and original comic is Rune Andréasson). In 2019, IFF Art Film screened his film Bamse and the Thunder Bells, in 2023 Bamse and the Volcano Island and in 2024 Bamse and the World's Smallest Adventure. Each new Bamse adventure is an amazing experience for the whole family!

Voices: Rolf Lassgård, Johan Ulvesson, Vega, Åhman, Johan Clans, Johan Rabaeus

Sales: Swedish Film Institute

Fatih Akın is a German and Turkish film director, screenwriter, and producer born in Hamburg to Turkish parents. He is considered one of the most important European filmmakers of his generation. In his masterclass, he will discuss his most significant works, the process behind their creation, and where he finds creative inspiration.

ART FILM INDUSTRY is financially supported by the Audiovisual Fund

Foto: Copyright (c) Elena Zaucke

Slovak premiere

Film director Lea decides to search for her sister Deni, who disappeared from her life when Lea was eight years old. For the rest of the family, Deni's absence remained a taboo subject for 27 years, and no one ever tried to find her. Although Deni once attempted to contact her family, her message went unanswered. For Lea, this discovery becomes a turning point, prompting her to investigate her sister's past. As her search unfolds, she uncovers new pieces of the story and gradually realizes that Deni's life may have been very different from the version the family had believed for years.

The film is an anatomy of family relationships. Somewhere within this tangled web lies the answer to why Deni was so easily cast out. It is also a journey into the past, which the director reconstructs through family archives and everything that has survived of the memory of a sister. 

"Although the film is based on a true story, it presents different versions of reality. In this sense, it could be seen as a story about distorted memories and invented realities, where truth always depends on who is telling it," the director says about the film.

The film will have its Slovak premiere at IFF Art Film.

The film will be presented with the personal attendance: Lea Podhradská (director), Krisztián Ollári (cinematographer)

Sales: Hungarian National Film Institute

Slovak premiere

Director François Ozon presents a black-and-white adaptation of The Stranger set in colonial Algeria. The story follows Meursault, a withdrawn and emotionally detached Frenchman whose life begins to unravel after the death of his mother and, above all, after the senseless murder of an Arab man on a beach – an act triggered by the blazing sun and the absurdity of the moment. What follows is a trial in which not only the crime itself, but also the protagonist’s “inhuman” indifference toward social norms, is put on judgment.

Ozon pushes the story beyond Camus by giving voice to the victims of colonialism, naming them and emphasizing the inequalities of power, transforming the original existentialist philosophy into a sharp critique of imperial systems. Meursault’s emptiness no longer appears merely as metaphysical absurdity, but also as a product of colonial privilege.

The film premiered at the Venice IFF, where critics praised its visual beauty, measured pacing, and contemporary reinterpretation of Camus’s enduring question: what does it mean to live in a world without meaning, justice, or compassion?

Cast: Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, Swann Arlaud, Christophe Malavoy, Nicolas Vaude

Distributor: Filmtopia

Slovak premiere

Winner of the Best First Feature Award at Berlinale 2026, Palestinian-Syrian director Abdallah Al-Khatib’s film offers a profound look at civilian life in a besieged city. The story unfolds through five interconnected lives in which tragedy intertwines with moments of dark humour. This mosaic of everyday existence under suffocating siege examines how war brutally distorts values and turns even the simplest human gestures into desperate acts of survival. Innocent desires and small everyday joys are transformed by the reality of war into an unpredictable struggle for existence.

With great sensitivity, the film humanises the horrors of conflict while capturing the enduring will to survive under inhuman conditions. For the trapped inhabitants, the borders of the besieged city gradually become the borders of existence itself.

Cast: Nadeem Rimawi, Saja Kilani, Ahmad Kontar, Samer Bisharat, Ahmed Zitouni, Wassim Fedriche, Idir Benaibouche, Abdallah Alkhatib, Emad Azmi, Maria Zreik, Omar Rammal, Hamzeh Mahadin, Nour Seraj, Hayet Abu Samar, Majd Hijawi, Omar Almajali

Sales: Loco Films

Matúš Kvasnička (SK), Pierre-Yves Roger (FR), Clementine Sophia Van Wijngaarden (NL) - three experts from different parts of Europe will offer a unique insight into the background of film criticism, the functioning of international film festivals, and the current state of contemporary cinema.

ART FILM INDUSTRY is financially supported by the Audiovisual Fund

Slovak premiere

The second feature by director Marine Atlan follows a group of French high-school students on a school trip to Naples and Pompeii. Amid the ruins of the ancient city and the bodies fossilised by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the fragile boundary between adolescence, desire, and violence gradually begins to dissolve. The atmosphere of the sultry South, awakening sexuality, and collective hysteria transforms an ordinary excursion into an unsettling coming-of-age journey in which the young protagonists are swept away by their own emotions.

The film’s title refers to Gradiva, the mythologised female figure from the famous novella by Wilhelm Jensen, whom Sigmund Freud interpreted as a symbol of repressed desire and the return of the unconscious. Atlan brings this motif into the present day, creating a sensual and hypnotic portrait of a generation caught between a fascination with life and a pull toward destruction. Drawing on her extensive experience as a cinematographer, she employs the body, light, and movement in an almost tactile way, resulting in a work that feels more like a dream or a collective hallucination than a conventional coming-of-age drama.

The film won the AMI Paris Grand Prize in the La Semaine de la Critique section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Cast: Antonia Buresi, Colas Quignard, Suzanne Gerin, Mitia Capellier-Audat

Distributor: Artcam

Slovak premiere

Nominated for FIPRESCI Award

When 43-year-old Iva, a worker at a textile factory, visits a doctor with what she believes are flu symptoms, she is told to return to work. There, however, she collapses, and after being taken to hospital, she is diagnosed with COVID. Local media accuse her of bringing the virus into the town – even though she has never left it. Suddenly, everyone turns against her in shocking ways. She struggles to buy groceries and even faces physical attacks.

The case sheds light on the social conditions inside the factory. Its owner, the ruthless Mancini, is a textbook figure of wild capitalism – exploitative, unregulated, and indifferent to his employees. The film also explores another layer: the behaviour of society during the pandemic, examining emotional contagion and the hysteria that accompanied the global health crisis.

The film had its world premiere at the Venice IFF in the Orizzonti competition section and won the Golden Rose for Best Film at the Golden Rose Bulgarian Feature Film Festival.

Cast: Gergana Pletnyova, Todor Kotzev, Gerasim Georgiev, Ivajlo Hristov, Anastasia Ingilizova, Ivan Barnev

Distributor: Negativ

Slovak premiere

Written and directed by Rafael Manuel as his feature debut, this coming-of-age drama explores postcolonial class divides through the eyes of 17-year-old Isabel, who works as a “tee girl” at a golf course in the Philippines during an oppressively hot summer day. She finds herself strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, the president of the country club. But as she slowly uncovers the violence and exploitation hidden beneath the polished surface of the luxury resort, Isabel realizes that what began as innocent fascination is deeply rooted in a sinister shared history.

The film had its world premiere in competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere in the Perspectives section at this year’s Berlinale.

Cast: Jorrybell Agoto, Angeli Bayani, Shamaine Buencamino, Nour Hooshmand, Agot Isidro, Sunshine Teodoro, Thea Marabut, Ruby Ruiz, Carlos Siguion-Reyna, Teroy Guzman, Pipay Kipay

Sales: Magnify

A distinctly local variation on the Viscontian theme of a dying social class – its property, work ethic, and human dignity – this film is also an existential story about what social death looked like in the twentieth century, perhaps not only in Slovakia. We are screening Martin Hollý’s film in connection with the honorary Milan Lasica Award presented to Vlado Müller, however, the film is an extraordinary acting duet between Müller and Leopold Haverl – a masterful interplay of two perfectly calibrated characters, voices, physical presences, and worldviews. At the same time, it is a beautifully crafted period piece with exceptional dialogue, fragments of which resonate surprisingly strongly even today: “You always believed some noble clientele would save you. I believed in the masses. In the state-controlled masses...”

Cast: Vlado Müller (Alfréd Blum), Milan Kiš, Květa Fialová, Juraj Ďurdiak, Štefan Kožka, Olga Želenská, Norbert Jaborek

The film will be presented with a personal appearance by Richard Müller.

Distributor: Slovak Film Institute

Slovak premiere

A psychological courtroom drama inspired by the real-life case of one of Ireland’s most infamous unsolved murders – the 1996 killing of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Almost the entire story unfolds within a single room, where twelve jurors engage in an intense debate over the guilt or innocence of the accused. As the discussion progresses, it becomes clear that their judgment is shaped not only by evidence, but also by personal experiences, emotions, traumas, and prejudice. Each juror brings their own understanding of justice into the room, leading to escalating tensions and constant challenges to the notion of “truth.”

Inspired by the legendary film 12 Angry Men (1957), the drama also examines how truth and the perception of reality shift during the reconstruction of a crime, and how easily people form simplified conclusions based on incomplete evidence. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival.

Cast: Vicky Krieps, Jim Sheridan, Aidan Gillen, Colm Meaney, John Connors

Sales: Latido Films

Festival partner of the film: PLOOM

Slovak premiere

Nominated for FIPRESCI Award

A small Polish town and four friends who serve as altar boys at the local church, each carrying burdens of their own. Filip’s mother struggles with depression and alcoholism, while Gucci’s parents are consumed by wealth and have little time for their son. One day, while cleaning the church, the boys hide inside the confessional and accidentally overhear several deeply personal confessions. Later, they witness the theft of church donations, which end up in the pocket of one of the priests. Determined to do good and ensure the money reaches those who truly need it, they take matters into their own hands. Installing a hidden camera inside the confessional, they begin monitoring who might deserve help the most. Wearing masks, they anonymously deliver envelopes of cash accompanied by messages claiming the aid comes from the church. But their radical actions trigger a chain of dramatic events that expose social hypocrisy and moral passivity, while also revealing courage and a refusal to surrender to injustice and evil.

At the Polish Film Festival, the film won the Golden Lions Grand Prize, as well as the Best Screenplay Award and the Audience Award.

Cast: Tobiasz Wajda, Bruno Błach-Baar, Mikołaj Juszczyk, Filip Juszczyk, Daria Kalinchuk, Kamila Urzędowska, Tomasz Schuchardt, Sławomir Orzechowski, Artur Paczesny

The film will be presented with the personal attendance: Piotr Domalewski (director)

Sales: Sales: Aurum Film

Head-On is the film that established Fatih Akin on the international stage. The story of Cahit and Sibel – two lonely German Turks living in Hamburg – begins as an impulsive arrangement involving a sham marriage, only to evolve into a raw, self-destructive, yet unexpectedly tender love story. Blending melodrama, social realism, and the energy of punk cinema, Akin creates a portrait of characters caught between the desire for freedom, cultural identity, and their inability to escape their own destructive impulses.

Head-On is often regarded as Akin’s breakthrough work – not because it was his first film, but because it fully crystallised the style that would later define his career: violent emotional contrasts, the physicality of relationships, music woven directly into the storytelling, and the constant tension between Germany and Turkey, personal freedom and social expectations. At the same time, the film rejects simplistic stereotypes about migrants or “clashing cultures”; the identities of its characters remain fractured, fluid, and often painfully ambiguous.

The film’s emotional force rests largely on the performances of Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli, who bring both rawness and vulnerability to their roles without ever slipping into sentimentality.

The film won the Golden Bear and the FIPRESCI Prize at Berlinale 2004 and has since become one of the defining European films of its decade. And in our view, it remains one of the most beautiful love stories ever put on screen.

Cast: Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Catrin Striebeck, Güven Kiraç, Meltem Cumbul

The film will be presented with the personal attendance: Fatih Akin (director)

Sales: Bavaria Media International