Viera Čákanyová (b. 1980) studied scriptwriting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and documentary filmmaking at FAMU in Prague. Her feature debut FREM (2019) premiered at the Ji.hlava IDFF 2019 and the Berlinale 2020, and won Best Debut at the ELBE DOCK Festival. Her subsequent film White on White (2020) claimed top honors at the Ji.hlava IDFF in 2020, GreenDox Award at Dokufest in Kosovo, the Czech Competition at One World in Prague, and was selected for the main competitions at Sheffield DocFest and ZagrebDox.
Rupicapra
Rupicapra
Rupicapra
As filmmaker she is not fascinated by stories of individuals that are emotionally strong and heart-catching. Čákanyová wants to offer her audiences a wider perspective in order to inspire them to new ideas.
'Through my film Slovaks can look at themselves from the perspective of Michael— someone who is somewhat odd, even nasty at times, but is not stupid; who happens to come from a superpower, a country that is culturally and politically incomparably more influential than Slovakia. Such person looks around without our Slovak sentiment and uses a language that is lingua franca. He points out the provinciality and pretentiousness that are deeply ingrained in us. We hardly see beyond the tip of our nose, we wage petty wars; we are xenophobic and not generous enough. It is ridiculous. What saves it all is just nature and animals.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ
